Need a good endorsement? Well, this one Zimbabwean hustler conned his president into endorsing his fake EV invention. The president of Zimbabwe held a ceremony for him to showcase his vehicle that is “powered by RF" signals” and thus, according to him, runs infinitely without any fuel.

In this Open Letter:

• STEM joy: Getting 13.5M SA kids skilled in robotics & coding.

• OpenAI’s deep play, Pep’s big year & 14 startups the world needs.

• Best place to build in SA: And how to get your startup into the action.

• The ultimate township fire-prevention device: The results are in.

• Lonely building your startup? Join The Open Collab and get support.

Together with:

TRENDING NOW

Getting 13.5M SA Kids Skilled in Robotics

The best way to secure a child’s future just so happens to also be how you secure an entire country’s future. And the richest countries in the world can prove it – the more you invest in STEM education, the richer and more successful you, your people and the whole country become.

So, in today’s Tuesday Deep Dive, we’re focusing on a startup looking to revolutionise how we teach kids critical skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics…

As technology (particularly AI) advances apace, our human ability for critical thinking has never been more important…

Our critical thinking skills help us solve problems that AI can’t. But it also helps us get better at leveraging tech to augment our own abilities, improve on the tech, and figure out when the tech is being used for not-so-lekker stuff.

Vital knowledge in the age of AI.

But, currently, critical thinking is (or is not) forged and nurtured in school – particularly with STEM subjects like Science and Maths.

And South Africa is struggling to properly teach these subjects to kids. 

In fact, Grade 5 and Grade 9 learners from SA finished last (out of the 59 participating countries) in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study in both Maths and Science, despite their international counterparts all being a year younger than them – i.e. Grade 4 and Grade 8. 

SA Government tryna step up to the plate…

Back in 2019, President Cyril Ramaphose introduced the concept of “Smart Cities” (a new South African city built on smart technologies) during his State of the Nation Address. Not to mention the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (4IR), a buzzword kicked about. But if you want to see these things take shape, you need to start with the youth, and that’s what the government is doing…

In June 2024, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) gazetted an amendment to the National Curriculum Statement to include coding and robotics in the Grades R—9 curriculum.

The idea is that this new curriculum will be taught by existing teachers (once they’ve been trained 🤦‍♂️), and the Department of Basic Education will ensure that schools are equipped (with computers and other equipment) to teach coding and robotics subjects.

Exciting stuff.

Teachers: Real South African heroes. Give them medals. And raises…

But there’s a monster challenge awaiting the government and, specifically, the DBE.

There are nearly 25’000 schools in SA, the vast majority of them (22’500+) public schools (ones that receive government funding), and just over 450k teachers.

That’s a heck of a lot of teacher training, school resourcing (computers and robotics equipment), and curriculum development required to teach our 13.5 million-ish school kids robotics and coding (unlike subjects like mathematics that, some say, only need a textbook and a chalkboard)…

Not only that, but you can imagine in a country like SA, there’s little to no exposure to tech (beyond a smartphone) for the vast majority of these learners.

And lest we forget the challenges faced in getting textbooks into schools (year in and year out) – which is crazy considering that something as simple as providing every single learner with textbooks can improve literacy scores by as much as 20%...

The local startup cracking the code to teach robotics and coding

But a local startup is stepping up to solve this challenge at a record pace. Resolute Education has built a comprehensive suite of products to help schools with no coding or robotics experience (or teachers) required.

Resolute provides the school with a tailor-made CAPS-aligned starter package, including student and teacher guides, textbooks via their partnership with Oxford University Press, and video. So, with 6 hours of SACE-endorsed drip-fed in-person training (spread throughout the year to keep it manageable and qualifying teachers for CPDT points), any school can start offering coding and robotics classes.

They also supply a range of robotics kits for K (Grade R) to Grade 9, that allows kids to physically:

• build and programme smart gardens

• a line-following car

• and even an automated home (guess who’s never YouTubing how to set up a smart home appliance ever again?).

And the entire ecosystem is run via their LMS, which is helpful for teachers who may not know where to get started in presenting these classes.

For teachers and schools not convinced yet, there’s also a limited free version called Code The Nation with some resources, teaching plans and web simulators anyone can use to start laying down the foundation in prep for the rollout, right now.

We recently chatted with Resolute Founders Rajesh and Gareth. They’re expanding into the robotics and coding competition space for students who excel in these subjects and want to flex their robotic muscles a bit.

We think that Resolute is sitting pretty at the moment: With a government-mandated subject requirement that schools probably can’t fulfil from a training, hardware and curriculum perspective, there’s a need for an innovative solution.

Millions of SA kids exposed to critical thinking through coding and robotics? That’s exciting and we’re watching this space.

CHECK THIS OUT

The Best Place to Startup in SA

And an exclusive ticket to all the action…

Move over Joburg and Cape Town, SA has a new tech hub.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise – most people in tech know that some of the world’s most advanced satellite tech isn’t from the US or China; it’s from right here in SA wine country.

You know, the birthplace of top ventures like Snapscan and a little something called The Open Letter…

But now it’s confirmed: A recent study by Quickbooks SA found that Stellenbosch now leads SA for the most tech jobs per capita.

“It is amazing to see the Stellenbosch tech ecosystem grow,” says Jacques Burger, COO of Stellenbosch-based hardware-software and CTO support legends, Octoco.

“I’d like to believe that our efforts at Octoco and Yenza Venture Studio, along with locals like LaunchLab, Workshack, Spatialedge and Alphawave Group, have contributed to this.”

And there’s room for all of SA to benefit…

How You Can Benefit from This Development

Anyone familiar with Elon Musk’s “First Principles”, (i.e. if you want success in any industry, go to where the ecosystem flourishes), will immediately draw a logical conclusion from this…

If you want to be successful in tech in SA:

• You either need to build in Stellenbosch

• Or work closely with suppliers/partners there.

Well, Jacques says Octoco will do you one better – Yenza Venture Studio is in Stellenbosch and looking to help SA founders develop and scale their startups.

So, if you want some of that prime SA tech action, apply today and come build with the best in the country.

IN SHORT

Set those tongues a waggin’…

🇿🇦 Flying the flag. The first edition of the Africa Tech Summit Awards is fast approaching with 55 finalists from across the continent being named. Representing SA at the awards are Cassava Technologies, Yellow Card, SwiftVEE, Ikusasa Technology Solutions, My Pregnancy Journey, and Peach Payments. Winners are announced on 12 Feb.

🤓 OpenAI’s Research Guy. Hot off the DeepSeek AI shakeup last week, Open AI launched a new AI Agent called deep research. The Agent apparently helps “people who do intensive knowledge work in areas like finance, science, policy, and engineering and need thorough, precise, and reliable research.” Another onslaught on Google’s search dominance.

👀 Something to work on. Y Combinator has released its latest list of ideas they see as interesting for startups to be working on, a mere 3 months since the last one — a testament to how quickly things are moving in the tech and startup space. This round of Requests for Startups (RFS) includes (unsurprisingly) a bunch of ideas in AI, as well as data centres, automation, and compliance and audit. Are you building something they listed?

🛒 Put a Pep in Your Step. Pepkor is planning on opening up between 250 and 300 brick-and-mortar stores in 2025. This is off the back of bumper Q4 2024 results which show the retailer group’s revenue increased by 12.1% driven largely by its clothing and general merchandise segment. Its financial services offering which includes Flash and Capfin grew by a massive 35% in the same period. Very nice.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with ultra-simple project management with Notion, next-level business strategy support from Metavolve and 12 more vital startup tools & services.

BUILDING TOGETHER

Happening over at The Open Collab

In the last few days alone, in our online community, we…

• Had a killer founder-and-funding AMA session with Next176’s “money guy”, Rajiv Daya.

• Helped connect Gustav with everyone’s favourite local AI Agent-monetisation dabbler 🤖🤑.

• Tryna get Danie the best JHB photographer to up his property game.

• Got our invites for Friday’s founder mindset and scaling masterclass.

• Received Y Combinator’s RFS list days before anyone else in SA 🎯.

• Helped Danei get valuable insights into SAFE agreements (Simple Agreements for Future Equity) that she could use to set her accountants straight.

• Had a long discussion around possibilities when a little birdie mentioned to us that there’s a really, really small chance SA might see the return of Mxit (or some form of it)…🤔

Thinking about joining The Open Collab?

• Supercharge your network in the SA startup landscape — get that introduction, get that customer, or meet that partner.

• Get feedback on your products, services and/or offers from others who have built and are building their own products right now.

• Join all our online and in-person events for free!

• Exclusive 1-on-1 sessions with startup consultants.

SA’s only dedicated tech startup and scale-up founder community.

HAPPENING SOON

Upcoming Events

In four days’ time, we’re getting serious about the founder mindset with a hard-hitting look at the scale-up trap EVERY founder steps in (and how to avoid it) — exclusive to members of The Open Collab community.

Friday, 7 February at 12:00.

13 February 2025 — Cape Town Coffee Meetup: Come hang out with the Open Collab community, meet new faces, and chat about what you’re working on — exclusive to members of The Open Collab community.

14 February 2025 — LinkedIn Ad Hacks: Cracking the code: How you can make LinkedIn ads work for you on any budget — exclusive to members of The Open Collab community.

View all our upcoming events here.

WHAT YOU SAID

We didn’t start the fire…

Last Friday, we riddled you about affordable SA-built fire-protection devices for RDP housing, and most of you know all about Lumkani.

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📱 FireNet (21%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧯 Xtinguish (31%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🔥 Lumkani (48%)

Your 2 cents…

Well, lekker guess, Leverne! This time it worked out perfectly 🎉.

Ooh, so close, PK! 🤏

Nice, Ramona. Ja, they really on 🔥.