At 16-years-old, Tshepiso Malema had a dream to give township kids more digital access through gaming and skills building. Fast forward a few years and he earned a spot on the Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans list. Now in 2023, he won Best Edu-Tech startup, making SA proud yet again! Here’s more:
Tunisia (18 October 2023) — A South African dreamer recently got his moment in the tech spotlight and shone brightly at the AfricArena AI, DeepTech, HealthTech & EdTech Summit. For the twenty-one-year-old Tshepiso Malema, this was not only a massive opportunity to pitch his edu-tech idea, but a chance to represent South Africa’s innovation in the tech world.
Tshepiso, a BIT Information Systems student at the University of Pretoria, humbly introduces himself as a “multifaceted young man from the dusty streets of Ivory Park”. His desire to bridge the gap between township life and digital access put him on the map before he had even reached the age of twenty, earning him a spot on the Mail&Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans list for a dream he began at just 16.
His startup, ‘Gamers Territory’ became a digital force of good as it not only allowed township kids to access digital skill-building and entertainment through gaming but also set out to provide coding and robotics classes so that township youth can keep up in the ever-changing digital world.
Continuing his positive trajectory in the tech world led Tshepiso Malema to the AfricArena Summit in Tunisia recently, where he pitched against other African edu-tech startups and won for his ‘Sgela Play’, a gaming platform set to help students with maths and science as “an educational gaming application with a mission of transforming the education system by simply infusing fun, enhancing, creative thinking and ability to use imagination beyond theory that is applied,” per AfricArena.
Tshepiso’s dream joins other innovative young South Africans hoping to transform the education system and accessibility in South Africa from the ground up, at a time where digital skills development has never been more important for young futures.
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