An exciting new song celebrating Madiba, Freedom and South Africa has been created to inspire young coding hopefuls but it has the power to inspire us all! Are you ready to dance this Mandela Day?
South Africa (05 July 2024) – A #Coding4Mandela Song was created by Tebogo Matlou, from the township of Lenyenye in Tzaneen, for Tangible Africa, as part of the global build-up to Mandela Day on July 18.
The global event aims to get 30,000 learners coding on the day, to celebrate 30 years of democracy in South Africa. This includes coding tournaments planned for across South Africa, as well as Africa and Indonesia.
Tangible Africa Founder and Head of the Department and Associate Professor at the Nelson Mandela University Computing Sciences Department, Prof Jean Greyling, says demystifying coding is a critical first step in preparing teachers and learners for the planned Coding and Robotics curricula.
“In our training sessions we suggest different interactive ways to introduce the idea that a computer programme is ‘a list of instructions that tells a computer what to do’. This includes games like Hopscotch, recipes and songs containing instructions. Tebogo’s song is thus a powerful tool within this context,” said Prof Greyling.
Tebogo is passionate about introducing learners from various schools in his region of Limpopo to Coding and Robotics. Some of his teams have done him proud in First Lego League competitions, including winning trophies.
Driven by a vision to empower the youth in his community, Tebogo established a company aimed at hosting electronic and gaming activities. This initiative, known as Royce Electronic Games and Olympiads, was created to ensure that young learners gain access to essential skills in Coding and Robotics.
He was naturally attracted to Tangible Africa’s coding games. Tangible Africa, an engagement project of the Leva Foundation and Nelson Mandela University, provides training and awareness about unplugged coding through the flagship coding games, BOATS and RANGERS.
Creating the catchy song for Tangible Africa’s Mandela Day event, was a passion project for Tebogo. Schools are now challenged to perform their own dances with the song.
To show what can be done, a group dance of SADTU Unplugged Coding Master Trainers was recorded in East London:
Adrian Tony, a Tangible Africa coding facilitator in Loxton, also recorded a video with suggested dance moves:
For more information on being part of the dance challenge and other Mandela Day activities, contact Prof Greyling at jean.greyling@mandela.ac.za
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