On the 11th and 12th of June the Live App Festival took place at the Nasrec Expo Centre. The Innovation Hub, the official innovation agency of the Gauteng province, was a proud sponsor of The Live App Festival which was curated as a vehicle through which youth were encouraged to contribute to tech development in their communities.
The Innovation Hub has three priority sectors, namely Bioeconomy, Green economy and smart Industries. With specific relation creating channels for tech advancements, The Innovation Hub’s Smart Industries Programme has developed programmes specifically designed for the participation of youth in tech development development. With specific reference to mobile applications, these programmes are Codetribe and MLab.
At the onset of the 4th Industrial Revolution, The innovation Hub has prioritized the capacitating of youth by exposing them to skills necessary for participating in the tech revolution. One such programme that works toward upskilling Gauteng youth is Codetribe, which benefits high school students by exposing them to coding is one such programme which has invested in exposing gauteng youth to coding for mobile app development. CodeTribe is a collaboration between the Innovation Hub and mLab Southern Africa and intends to “increase the skills of talented young ICT enthusiasts by providing them a learning environment where they build real world products as part of a one year programme. The aim is to foster a culture of making within our country. We need to be Makers and we need to equip our youth with skills and encourage them to be curious, to investigate and to make rather than consume” said Aubrey Malabie, CodeTribe’s Manager and one of the founders of the organization.
Maxum Smart as well as MLab are two other programmes that have been employed by The Innovation Hub to create an inclusive economy wherein more South African entrepreneurs are afforded the opportunity design, contribute and participate in mobile app development in solution of social challenges. mLab Southern Africa (Mobile Applications Laboratory NPC) is a product of the collaboration between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, The Department of Science & Technology, The Innovation Hub, The CSIR, The V&A Waterfront and the World Bank. It was
launched as a mobile technology accelerator in 2011 and has, since inception, successfully supported new innovative startups participating in the mobile apps economy. Their open innovation lab include programmes that support skills development through their partner code academies, facilitated co-creation seasons with industry and public sector partners.
Our very own mobile app savvy entrepreneurs were invited to exhibit at the festival, among those present were Vuleka App which connects large manufacturers to spaza shops; and Ejoobi which is a platform where cloud services meet USSD and SMS. Ejoobi enables job seekers without internet to SMS their CVs and supporting documents using any mobile device. It connects recruiters to job seekers who receive job adverts via SMS.
