Summer Dev Days In Kimberley

Being a developer these days requires keeping up with time, the industry and simply Getting Stuff Done. More often than not, here at Geekulcha we tell people to live by the code. This year we established a Northern Cape leg of Geekulcha that is stimulating, cultivating and driving a Geek Culture in the province.

With the Northern Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDaT), it is our goal to grow the Developer/Maker momentum in the province. Through the Knowledge Economy and Innovation sub-programme of the department, we aim to see the ICT/Entrepreneurship scene take new heights in the province.

For 3 days, our Geeks took a journey to Kimberley and helped local Innovators take their ideas in motion. This is what they got up to:

Intel IDZ Training (NDK and the XDK)
Coming up with Innovation for SKA Knowledge and build apps
Business Development support with the IDZ
Microsoft Imagine Cup activation workshop
Technical support for the NCDev Hackathon winners

The students coming from institutions such as SPU itself, UNISA and TVET College, came up with these ideas for the SKA Knowledge:

An app called Daasie Move to provide a job portal and ability to apply with ease for SKA related job offers.
Simplifying and translating SKA information for ordinary people to understand through the SKA Inform app.
Update Me app - Giving people the exclusivity and first hand at new discoveries that the SKA encounters through the app.
Making use of the SKA to localize climate in helping farmers - SupaNova.

Geekulcha Mobile Ninjas (Tchisseke Vicente, Thamsanqa Mahlaola and Jonathan Mayunga) took charge of the trainings. They were also joined by the Geekulcha Student Ambassadors at Sol Plaatje University - Keenan Gwells and Thato Duiker.

On behalf of all the Northern Cape Geeks, we would like to say extend a huge thanks to DEDaT for their contuniues support.

In February 2016, an SKA Hackathon will be hosted to drive more SKA Knowledge. Keep your eyes on www.ncdev.co.za.