According to the World Economic Forum, education across Africa drops dramatically at the secondary level – only 50% of young people enrol at this level, and only seven percent move on to tertiary education. It has become critical that Africa focuses on building an educational pipeline that provides education across the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) fields to ensure that the continent, and its people, are not left behind in the wake of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In South Africa, the education crisis is a challenge, but it’s one that Ntombikayise Banda plans to overcome with innovation and robotics.

“Robot Learn is a low-cost robotic platform designed to teach learners programming and engineering skills in their home language,” says Banda, founder of FundaBotix. “The robotics platform consists of a robot ‘brain’ module, a robot body with wheels and a number of sensors that measure environmental properties such as light, sound and heat. The brain can be programmed using mobile phones, tablets and PCs, which makes the technology easily accessible in areas with little to no computers.”