With over 60 delegates comprising teams of coders, entrepreneurs and developers, Team Music Garden was amongst the top entrants at the eighth SA Innovation Summit held at the Cape Town Stadium at the end of August.
Each team member won a Raspberry Pi Kit at a 24-hour hackathon that was part of the Summit, during which they were tasked with creating mobile applications that could potentially alleviate some of the challenges faced in early childhood development.
The SA Innovation Summit is held annually to offer South African, other African and global innovators the opportunity to showcase their exceptional talents, innovations and ideas. The hackathon was hosted by the Innovation Edge, IBM, Silicon Cape and the SA Innovation Summit.
Working with programmers, designers, creatives and early childhood development (ECD) practitioners, the teams designed apps to address challenges in ECD, such as limited access to good nutrition for children and pregnant women; a lack of responsive care and early stimulation; inadequate child safety and parent involvement; and training for practitioners and meaningful cross-sector collaboration.
Team Nappi Daddi designed an app to encourage fathers to become more involved in their children’s early development by using stories and activities. Team Music Garden’s app was created to help facilitate more effective learning in young children by using music. Other apps that were developed included using technology to turn waiting spaces into engaging environments for young children, and using technology to promote reading and storytelling to young children.
The entries were judged by a panel of technology and ECD experts, and prizes were awarded based on the creativity, feasibility, cost-effectiveness and the potential for implementation of each entry. “RS Components sponsored the prizes for this hackathon because there is overwhelming evidence that quality learning programmes and interventions at an early development level can stimulate positive individual growth in children that can improve their health, learning capabilities and social skills,” said Brian Andrew, general manager for RS Components South Africa.
He was impressed by how many exciting possibilities the Summit offered to address the challenges in early learning. “At RS Components we believe that technology should be used as an enabler to improve society at all levels, and what better way to use creativity and technological capability than to resolve the daily challenges of children and their care-givers,” he said.
The five members of Team Music Garden will each receive a Raspberry Pi Kit that consists of a Raspberry Pi 2 computer board with accessories.
For more information contact RS Components, +27 (0)11 691 9300, sales.za@rs-components.com, www.rsonline.co.za
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