Lindiwe Matlali

Life is not what we are chasing. Life is what we are leaving behind in the chasing

Lindiwe Matlali is the founder and CEO of Africa Teen Geeks, an organisation responsible for the development of the coding and robotics curriculum.

Matlali, from Pretoria, has been recognised by the World Economic Forum as the Social Innovator of the Year.

She was also awarded the Point of Light Award by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth for her work in promoting access to quality education for all children, irrespective of their socioeconomic status.

Matlali started Africa Teen Geeks in 2014 as an enrichment programme aimed at exposing children from disadvantaged communities to computer science.

As always, major challenges including funding, were an obstacle, but Matlali managed, through family support and organisations that believed in her vision, to make headways.

“My goal was to seek impact and not accolades, to focus on supporting and serving the children and walk with them through their tech, entrepreneurship, and innovation journey. So, the awards, though not our main goal, opened a lot of opportunities and doors,” says Matlali.

The organisation has so far trained more than 12 000 teachers from poor schools to empower and enable them to introduce coding at their schools.

Matlali, who was born and raised in Belfast, Mpumalanga, says she was raised by her grandfather after she lost both her parents as a toddler. “He instilled in me the love and passion for education.”