We are proud to have partnered with XinaBox as our flagship project.
Our goal at DDF is to develop a program for the rollout of the XinaBox kits across all public schools. This will expose students to various aspects of IT and STEAM and open their minds to the various transformative possibilities of technology.
Our partnership with XinaBox kits ranges across the various phases/grades in schools. The program would also train the teachers on how to use the kits to practically explain the various concepts of STEM subjects. As these rollout across the various schools, we can start introducing some level of healthy competition across them to think innovatively on how they can use technology to solve practical/social problems in their environments.
The XinaBox kits expose kids to ICT by introducing them to the XChips: basic, low code programming; the submission and collection of data; analysing data and getting meaningful insights, all the way to Big Data and applying Machine Learning and AI.
For one of our first projects, the Foundation was contacted by Lydia Plaaitjies, a PhD candidate from the University of Johannesburg who is also involved in community work in the Western Cape. Using Whatsapp as a resource to connect with community workers, Lydia found a request on the Western Cape Education Group looking for ECD Centre workers to join, especially those from centres not registered with Government as they receive no funding. Fifty Centre leaders were identified but the challenge was getting everyone to connect easily for meetings and group outcomes.
The Dhiya Development Foundation, through the Nihka Technology Group, responded to Lydia’s call to sponsor the 50 ECD Centres, at a cost of R27 000 over 3 months, which were divided into four areas with four co-ordinators. The areas covered Stellenbosch, Kraaifontein, Belville and Mannenberg.
The result: The four working areas and their co-ordinators could easily host group meetings on Whatsapp through voice and video. Having access to data also meant that they could showcase their work, as a portfolio of evidence, through videos and pictures of feeding and learning programmes aimed at the children of the recipient centres.
