As the globe marks International Nelson Mandela Day, 30 000 youth across two continents will engage in the annual global coding tournament #Coding4Mandela.
Facilitated by the Department of Computing Sciences at Nelson Mandela University (NMU), in partnership with Tangible Africa and the Leva Foundation, the coding tournament takes place on #MandelaDay.
Other participating organisations include AWS InCommunities, Dutoit Group, S4 Integration, Fibertime, BBD and SAS.
This year sees 30 000 young coders from across 70 sites in Africa and Southeast Asia participate in the event, themed “igniting potential, impacting tomorrow”.
The participating African countries are Ghana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya, with a group of learners logging in from Indonesia.
Professor Jean Greyling, Tangible Africa founder and head of the NMU computing sciences department, says this year’s ambition is to drive more young people to code simultaneously – and do it across the globe.
Greyling explains the #Coding4Mandela event started as a small local tournament in Gqeberha in 2018. It then grew to become a national event in 2022. Last year, over 16 000 learners from across the country and other parts of the continent took part.
Roux Joubert, AWS SA director of software development, comments: “We’re always proud to mould the future of our economy. This lies in upskilling our young talent and preparing them to succeed in the future world of work.”
According to Jackson Tshabalala, Tangible Africa engagement manager, various sites will host the challenge, including Robben Island, the offices of the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Houghton, Bizana Garden of Remembrance, the Captivity Site outside Howick, the Albert Luthuli Museum in Durban and the Boardwalk Shopping Centre in Gqeberha.
“Each site decides on their own prizes, varying from medals, to cash prizes, to coding kits and even mobile phones,” notes Tshabalala.
Leva Foundation CEO Ryan le Roux says once the coding tournament ends, “we will follow up with teachers from competing schools to introduce them to our online unplugged coding courses”.
Overall winners in senior primary and high school categories will be determined through a virtual round table involving the winning teams from all participating #Coding4Mandela sites.
Share