A young software developer who grew up in Nyavhani village in Malamulele turned heads at the MTN Business App of the Year awards two weeks ago. An application that he and his team had developed won the 2020 Fundi Best Educational App award.
The application is quite remarkable, in that it uses images to teach people Xitsonga. Primarily, the app provides users with thousands of words translated from Xitsonga to English and is designed to help users learn the language in a fun and intuitive way. Users are able to simply take a picture and use the Xitsonga vision feature to find out what the word is in Xitsonga. This app also includes a function to access Xitsonga proverbs and idioms, sharing with users the wisdom of the Vatsonga people.
The head developer, Mukondleteri Dumela, currently stays in Kraaifontein in the Western Cape, but he grew up in Limpopo. He says that he developed this app purely to make learning the Xitsonga language easy for people. He needed four months to build the app, with many of the initial features already available on the Xitsonga.org website.
He first learnt to use a computer when he went to the University of Pretoria to study for a Bachelor of Information Science degree, specialising in multimedia.
"It's overwhelming to receive an award of this magnitude. The fact that our hard work on digitizing Xitsonga has been recognized and is being celebrated instils confidence in our team to continue our work. It's a truly remarkable moment for our team and Vatsonga as whole. Ndzi ri avuxeni Afrika Dzonga," he says about his win.
While Dumela is the founder and developer of Xitsonga.org, his team consists of Hlulani Baloyi (product manager), Hlawuleka Maswanganyi (lead developer), Ntshuxeko Ndhlovu (editor in chief), Akani Maluleke (social media) and Irvin Maceke (intern developer).
"In the coming year, we want to scale up the platform to include more African languages," he says.
The annual MTN Business App of the Year Awards, which took place virtually for the first time, celebrates the very best of South Africa's app-development talent. This year saw an unprecedented 726 entries into these awards, 75 of which were apps submitted for Best Educational Solution.
The category sponsor of Best Education Solution is Fundi, a leading education finance and education fund management solution specialist in South Africa. "Fundi aims to empower students of all ages with the funding, resources, tools and knowledge they need to succeed in their chosen vocation, assisting with access to the ever-expanding world of unlimited education learning possibilities," says Khaya Mncwango, marketing manager at Fundi.