Riding the waves of radio’s future
JAMLAB’s fourth edition looks at how Zambia’s Ishiwi radio show thrives on feedback from its listening club, and explore how children use radio for healing

I recently had the opportunity to attend the annual Radio Days Africa conference hosted by Wits Journalism. The premier gathering of radio leaders and influencers on the African continent repeatedly affirmed that this “old school” medium is as resilient as ever in the face of changing technology trends, decreasing print sales, and shrinking newsrooms. Radio remains one of the most effective ways journalists can reach wide audiences and have meaningful impact in the communities they serve.
Not only has the medium of radio remained steadfast, but its practitioners are finding new ways of using it innovatively and adapting to the changing trends across the country and the world. It is for this reason that in this fourth edition of the JAMLAB newsletter, we share some of the fascinating and inspiring stories from the conference.
We start in Zambia, where the BBC’s Media Action department partnered with a local radio station Ishiwi (My Voice) in Kabwe, to establish a listening club that gives direct feedback to a show produced by young people for young people. The radio show on KNC was established to fill a void where young people were not given a voice on many radio stations, rendering them seemingly apathetic to the state and politics of their country.
In South Africa, DR Gabriel Urgoiti manages RX Radio for children at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital. Though still in its infancy, this radio service aims to promote intergenerational dialogue between the children attending the hospital, their families and the health workers of the hospital, as well as child-to-child dialogue between children patients and other children in the community.
The above mentioned radio stations are all housed in bricks-and-mortar buildings. However broadcasting should not be limited to just fixed studios and outside broadcast studios that require a lot of cabling and a thousand hands to put together. The Eye’s mobile radio box is a nifty suitcase that can be used by anyone, anywhere, and it easily fits through the security scanners at the airports so you can take your radio in a box on the road.
Accelerating innovation
Although this is not radio-focused, it is news we are delighted to share. A week ago, the six teams selected to participate in the first JAMLAB Accelerator programme met at the Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct in Johannesburg. This week, we introduce you to one of them, African Tech Round-up, who will be spending the next six months developing their product and finding new strategies on monetising it.
Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship

In August JAMLAB is hosting Asmaa Malik, an associate professor at the Ryerson School of Journalism in Canada — one of our partners in the journalism and media accelerator we are running at Tshimologong.
She will share some case studies of media startups that have grown out of the Digital Media Zone, a tech hub at Ryerson. If you haven’t booked your seat yet, then take this moment to do so here.
Please join the conversation on Twitter or Facebook. Or feel free to email us at jamlab@journalism.co.za
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