Uncategorized
The South African winners of the #Coding4Mandela national championship will represent the country to compete for the World Cup. Image: Youtube.com/Tangible Africa
By Johnathan Paoli
The winners of the 2025 #Coding4Mandela National Championships have been crowned, following a record-breaking season that saw more than 50,000 learners participate in July’s regional tournaments.
Tangible Africa, an initiative of Nelson Mandela University (NMU) and the Leva Foundation, develops offline-friendly coding games such as Rangers and Juicy Gems to promote 21st-century skills through play.
“Our vision is to make the #Coding4Mandela movement an annual, national event in South Africa, preparing teachers and learners for the roll-out of the gazetted Coding and Robotics curricula,” said Andre Greyling, Head of Computing Sciences at NMU.
Leva Foundation CEO Ryan le Roux highlighted the global reach of the programme:
“Tournaments are one of three main components of Tangible Africa’s activities. The World Cup has now caught the attention of major role players. It is always amazing to see how excited educators on other continents are about an application developed in Gqeberha.”
Global Engagement Manager Jackson Tshabalala emphasised the growing interconnectedness among young people:
“From looking at social media posts by participating teams over the past week, it is clear that the digital connection among learners from diverse backgrounds brought about by the nationals has great added value. At the world champs, where part of the event involves teams interacting via Zoom before the tournament, this takes on an exciting global scale.”
The virtual finals, held late last month, brought together 147 winning teams across three age categories, competing through the new Tangible Tournament app. Each team coded from their own school, with their solutions transmitted to Tangible Africa’s headquarters in Gqeberha for evaluation.
After a day of intense competition, the national champions emerged:
• Stanger Manor Primary School (KwaDukuza, KwaZulu-Natal) in the primary category.
• Southlands Secondary School (Chatsworth, KwaZulu-Natal), which clinched victories in both the Grades 8–9 and Grades 10–12 divisions.
Building on this success, a squad of 48 South African teams was announced to represent the country at the Tangible World Cup on 30 September. The global event will feature hundreds of teams from more than 25 countries, with Tangible Africa and the Leva Foundation leading South Africa’s preparations.
For learners, the impact extends beyond competition. Some schools have launched coding clubs, while others report participants securing bursaries and career opportunities in technology.
INSIDE EDUCATION
