
ABOUT TIYANI NGHONYAMA
Tiyani Nghonyama is a qualified Computer Systems Engineer and is a Founding Member, Director and COO of Geekulcha, and Strategic Lead of the Northern Cape Developer (NCDev) Ecosystem. In 2019 he was named 41st IT Personality of the Year by Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa in annual President's Awards.
He sits on the Advisory Committee Boards of the Tshwane University of Technology and the Vaal University of Technology for Computer Science. Since 2014, he has been working with the University of South Africa in building Open Source stamina, pipeline and innovation development. With this, he champions the role of Hackathons and Open Dataquests in helping accelerate academic excellence.
In 2015, he created the Geekulcha Student Society programme at Sol Plaatje University. The programme has now spread to 18 campus in 6 provinces in the country. The programme builds Tech and Innovation Leadership capacity on campus with a mandate of student innovation support, STEM in community drive, civic innovation development and Female Geeks empowerment.
Throughout his career, Tiyani had wished and aspired to be included in history books. It was an absolute thrill for him to be included in the London’s book, Creative Superpowers, which highlights his work in the IoT/Makerspace scene in South Africa and also included the various programmes.
He has been invited to the South African Parliament by 3 Ministers, 3 times for his work in apps for social activism, public sector innovation for enhanced service delivery and information security skills capacity building.