Girl learners win big in techno-girl awards
Arthur Blaxall High School scooped the top award in the techno-girl programme for 2015. The school came out tops out of twelve participating schools in KwaZulu Natal this year. This announcement was made by the Deputy Minister of Small Business Development, Ms Elizabeth Thabethe, this morning at a ceremony in Pietermaritzburg.
Each school was represented by ten learners. Deputy Minister Thabethe hosted the programme in April this year where the girls were required to come up with an innovation that has the potential to capture the market and lead to job creation.
“The girls from Arthur Blaxall won the 2015 techno-girl competition after presenting a revolutionary coffee machine idea that uses handprint-memory technology to provide the user with custom-made coffee all the time. The coffee machine caters for blind people because it has Braille codes”, said Deputy Minister Thabethe.
She further announced that one of the department’s agencies, the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA), will be working with the girls to look at issues of their intellectual property and the development of the prototype.
“The techno-girl programme seeks to encourage girl learners to pursue careers in the STEM ( Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) but also to make them realise that they can be job creators rather than job seekers. We encourage them to view entrepreneurship as an alternative career path rather than a last option when all else has failed,” said Thabethe
As part of their prizes, two of the girls from the winning school participated in the global summit of women in Brazil in May this year and all ten of them were also special guests of Deputy Minister of Small Business Development, Ms Elizabeth Thabethe in parliament during her budget vote speech.
“The experience in Brazil was out of this world! Seeing and meeting so many powerful women under one roof and sharing their knowledge was just amazing.” said Samkelisiwe Mbeje, the team leader.
Deputy Minister Thabethe expressed her appreciation for the support and partnership that the department has with Cell C, which sponsored the girls with twelve smartphones with sim cards and airtime, two tablets plus a 4-in-1 printer. Grintek Defence also gave each of the120 learners who participated in the programme a tablet with sim card. The girls also received 120 scientific calculators from Ithala Development Finance. Mr Mchunu of iZibuko Media, a local businessman also sponsored the 3rd, 4th and 5th runner up schools with laptops and data for one year.
Deputy Minister Thabethe concluded: “We have hosted this programme in all the provinces but this year is very special to me. It is so special because Arthur Blaxall is a school for learners with special needs. These girls are from a school for the blind, partially sighted and multiple impaired learners from Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal.”
Enquiries:
Cornelius Monama
Cell: 082 578 4063
Email: Cmonama@dsbd.gov.za
Noko Manyelo
Tel: 012 394 9966
Cell: 060 972 5221
E-mail: nmanyelo@dsbd.gov.za
