Durban University of Technology’s (DUT’s) Fanie Ndlovu, a Masters’ degree student in Information and Communications Technology, (ICT) is the brainchild of VarsityGenie, a student leadership platform. He is very passionate about developing the skills of young people in communities and townships. Currently, Ndlovu has a newly, appointed team of DUT ICT students who share a passion to improve the lives and livelihoods of students.
The recently selected team are DUT’s Advanced Diploma student, Sanele Doyisa, ICT Honours student, Siyabonga Madide and ICT Honours student, Sthembiso Thabethe. They are working on a pilot project to upskill the deaf community the deaf community with skills required in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).
Giving more insight on the project is Thabethe, a hearing-impaired student at DUT, who is now the VarsityGenie Vice-President for Accessibility. He said that most of events and workshop around 4IR are excluding deaf people, this inspired him to initiate a 4IR skills development project for the deaf.
He relayed that the most important objective of the project is to ensure that the deaf community obtain Computer Sciences or ICT qualifications. To achieve that Thabethe aims to extend the number of deaf students at the Information Systems Department starting from the year, 2023. He is also working with DUT’s Mr Petri Du Toit to develop sign language material which is for information technology communication.
“This will be beneficial to everyone in the deaf community and hearing world when it comes to technology. Also, in the Information Systems (IS) Department we have established sign language lessons which will be taught to all departments,” he said excitedly.
He also made mention that through VarsityGenie’s experience, they will work hard to contribute to their mission that will enable DUT students excel in their careers.
Doyisa, the VarsityGenie President, said that gender equality remains a major issue in the corporate world,
“As VarsityGenie, we are working towards changing the stigma associated with that. We aim to incorporate women in the IT field through our programmes. We want to also introduce students into the Internet of Things and teach them about Arduino which will help them build prototypes of their projects,” he said.
He conveyed that through the introduction to Internet of things students will have the skills needed for them to build any prototype they want to build in order for them to become entrepreneurs. He added that VarsityGenie is currently building a relationship with innobiz to help students with their prototypes.
Madide, the VarsityGenie Vice-President for Technology indicated that VarsityGenie is planning to have more interactive projects that includes women empowerment along with coding and robotics projects to be done on campus.
“Our forthcoming projects will contribute to DUT’s ENVISION2030 under the digital environment where we will run projects that will assist staff and students to develop automated systems for storage, retrieval, access and record keeping of documents and evidence. Furthermore, these projects will include birthday applications, the bursary system, assert system and power platform,” he stressed.
Madide also added that VarsityGenie is helping DUT’s Information Technology and Information Systems Department to produce a promotional video that will inform deaf learners in Matric about the Faculty of Accounting and Informatics 4IR Centre Excellence Lab and encourage them to come to study at DUT as they have facilities specially designed for their needs.
Fanie Ndlovu, VarsityGenie, Co-Chairman, said that when he left his job in 2016 to start VarsityGenie, his mission was to build a space where young people could exercise leadership and their passion to better their communities.
“For the past five years I have been mentoring and training hundreds of youths with digital and leadership skills which Madide, Doyisa and Thabethe are now promoting. Siyabonga Madide has been with VarsityGenie since 2018, Sanele Doyisa, since 2021 and Sthembiso Thabethe since 2019. Through their wonderful progress and dedication to empowering others. I felt now is the time for them to lead VarsityGenie with fresh ideas and more energy that will have more impact than mine,” he said.
Pictured: Siyabonga Madide, Sthembiso Thabethe and Sanele Doyisa from the VarsityGenie team.
Waheeda Peters
