Building a Digital Kasi at #gkVacWork

Preparing and securing the skills of tomorrow means equipping young people with the relevant skills that will enable them to bring change in the world. Geekulcha, The Innovation Hub and mLab Southern Africa have been a hosting a vacation work programme for high school learners during school holidays.

This time around, the programme returns to Soweto to grow ICT and Entrepreneurship skills capacity onto the youngsters, 30 - 06 December. Programming or computer literacy not necessary, youngsters from age 9 - 20 may apply to take part.

Information Page: future.geekulcha.com

With the realization that ICT is an enabler of Innovation in almost each and every sector, the VacWork programme in Soweto will be set against the backdrop of a need of the Township Economic Revitalization. Taking place at the newly launched Ekasi Labs in Soweto, Diepsloot.

Youngsters were challenged to come up and build innovative solutions that will help with Digital Transformation in their Soweto township and make life easy.

This will be a practical based learning where the scholars are trained, mentored and get hands on throughout the programme in building their solutions. Focus of the VacWork programme is centered on mobile apps, web applications, graphics design, electronics/robotics and business development.

At the end of the programme, the youngsters will did formal presentations of their solutions in front of judges. They may choose pursue the projects as a start up.

Here are the top 3 projects:

Number 1: Kasi App Lovers

They developed an app for high school learners to stimulate and help them apply for varsity. School learners will enter their marks, province of choice, annual family income, etc. and then the app will list all the possible universities/colleges one can apply in as well as bursary opportunities one may get.

The app also helps those already in varsity to manage budgets and spend with an aim to help reduce drop out rates.

Number 2: Safe Society

An offline device for the community alert one another about crime incidents and to help insurance companies much better through the data and reports.

Number 3: Zaitoff Graphics

This team provided graphics design services to other teams during the programme. They design logos and help other teams find/strengthen their identity and brand essence.

Here are the photos: