I started SEEN because of something I couldn’t unsee. Every day on the streets of South Africa, I watched women standing by the roadside, holding handwritten signs, offering whatever services they could just to make it through the day. It broke me every single time. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t safe. It’s a scene so common in our country that most people just… stop seeing it. It becomes part of the urban landscape. And for a country as full of talent and resilience as ours, it just wasn’t good enough.

As a South African woman, you feel it in your bones that that could be my aunt, my cousin, my friend or even me. And it’s a massive betrayal to the incredible talent that thrives in our country. We are a nation of survivors and innovators and yet these are the best platforms we have? Handwritten signs on roadsides?

I couldn’t just be concerned anymore. I had to be furious. And then I had to channel that fury into building something.
So, the vision became SEEN. The name is the mission of making women truly seen. Not seen as desperate figures on a roadside but as skilled and professional members of society. SEEN is not just a digital marketplace, but a platform where a woman’s skills are her currency, not her vulnerability. Where her effort is protected by a terms of service and not just by hope. Where she gets paid directly and properly for her work, without risking her safety to get it.

It’s about replacing that piece of cardboard with a profile. Replacing that dangerous roadside with a secure network. We’re not just trying to offer jobs for women but we are also restoring agency. We’re saying women’s talent has always been here but it’s just been waiting for a stage that deserves it.