As the annual Mandela Day Coding Tournament draws closer, with schools and learners standing a chance to win R20 000, Tangible Africa will host a virtual coding tournament from May 6 to 12.
“We were approached by AWS in Communities to come up with an activity that would have a positive and uplifting impact while learners were stuck at home.”
The tournament used Boats, the modified coding app which allowed learners to play from their homes, while their scores were submitted to the central database.
Other virtual tournaments have since taken place, with 200 schools and 600 learners participating, collectively scoring 16 000 points.
The 2024 tournament will launch a new agricultural coding app called “Juicy Gems”, which is like Boats.
On Juicy Gems learners will do coding challenges and will also be given information regarding agriculture. Learners need not have prior coding knowledge.
“Thanks to a great partnership with Dutoit, we have incentives of over R20 000 for participating learners and schools,” said Leva Foundation CEO, Ryan le Roux.
Leva Foundation works closely with Tangible Africa as the implementation partner.
“This is an exciting build up to our flagship project, the Mandela Day Coding Tournament, on July 18. Our slogan this year is ‘30 000 learners celebrate 30 years of democracy,’” said Engagement Manager, Jackson Tshabalala.
Nelson Mandela Foundation, one of the event’s prominent partners, will play host to 30 000 learners participating at approximately 100 sites across the continent.
Runei Kotze, from Dutoit said,
“We’re excited to see how ‘Juicy Gems’ engages learners in both coding challenges and healthy agricultural knowledge. It is inspiring to witness the impact of such innovative educational opportunities.”