Tangible Africa wins African Union Award
Tangible Africa, an organisation that spreads offline coding skills to primary and high school learners across the continent, received a prestigious accolade from the African Union earlier this month.
The organisation, an engagement initiative of the Nelson Mandela University Computing Sciences Department and the Leva Foundation, was one of the first winners of the Henley Innovation Fund and their CEO, Ryan le Roux, is a Henley MBA alumnus.
Tangible Africa was the first runner up in the African Union Innovating Education in Africa 2022 Awards
They beat over 900 applicants to be one of only three organisations awarded grant funding and recognition for their innovative approach to education in Africa. Following a virtual pitch in October, along with 15 other organisations from across Africa who were short-listed, the Tangible Africa team was selected to pitch in person in Tunis, Tunisia, this week.
Jackson Tshabalala, Operations Manager at the Leva Foundation, received the grant funding of $30,000 (More than R500,000) following his 5-minute pitch to the convenors of the awards.
“This is evidence that teamwork makes the dream work. I want to acknowledge our full team who all share in this: from our headquarters at the Leva Foundation in Gqeberha, our regional coordinators as well as the 200 coding ambassadors in communities across South Africa and the continent."
The Tangible Africa team plans to visit Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe to further spread coding skills across the continent by training teachers and other master trainers; and in December Tangible Africa will be hosting its first international coding tournament when teams from SA will take on teams from Ireland.
Unplugged coding has already been successfully introduced by the Tangible Africa team to coding clubs in Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Zambia.
"A solution from Africa for the world. Helping learners to enter the economy by crossing the digital divide."
Ryan le Roux