Providing data to home schoolers that can’t afford it – Alan Knott-Craig
The transition from classroom education to home schooling can be easy if you have internet access. One of the Biznews contributors Anton Roux related how his daughter's day has not changed much during the Covid-19 lockdown as she sits down in front of her laptop for lessons until the school day ends. For many other families in the country, it is not that easy as they do not have access to the internet. The charity Project Isizwe is enabling some poorer families to continue education by providing them with modems and data. But as Alan Knott-Craig told Alec Hogg it is a short-term solution during the novel coronavirus outbreak. The cost of data in South Africa is too expensive to provide internet to communities over the longer term. – Linda van Tilburg
It's really good to see people stepping up to help the South African effort during the Covid-19 crisis. Among them, Alan Knott-Craig, who is well known to members of the BizNews community through his contributions from time to time which are always very well read because you take a glass half-full approach to life, generally speaking. We're going to talk about Project Isizwe, your philanthropic operation that you've been involved in. In fact, if memory recalls you took time off to establish this.
I wouldn't say I took time off; I was kicked out of my company and I was forcefully unemployed. In 2013 we started an NGO called Project Isizwe. The idea was to figure out ways to effectively bring free internet into poor communities across South Africa. This started with a project we did in Pretoria called the Tshwane free Wi-Fi project, and since then the guys did projects for IPP's across the country, for coal mines, like Glencore in Mpumalanga. And recently we've done a cool project in Stellenbosch where we facilitate free home internet for children who go to school so they can keep up with academic classes whilst the lockdown continues.
In your day job though, you are the chairman of HeroTel your new business concept. How is it going on that side?
___STEADY_PAYWALL___