
Denis Waitley once said, "Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer" and this quote should inspire South Africa's posture in adaptation of new technological shifts, we ought not play catch up or always be the novel consumers, only. Setting path and forecasting the future plays an instrumental role in defining localised narratives, creating friendly operating environments and harmonising systems integration or cooperation by various stakeholders.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been guest starring (or becoming a main character if you will) within the South Africa tech, legislative, governance structures and many aspects that affect our livelihoods and of greater focus, has been defining policy and operative frameworks in relation to AI. Geekulcha has team played a role in contributing to African white papers, South African AI Policy Framework creations, and other platforms and our factor is that of a need to ensure that the basics are sought after and this includes:
- Coordinated study and understanding of South Africa's tech / digital literacy levels, as a way to guide new interventions
- There ought to be a conscious adherence to people's cultures, integrity, country's background and more equally so, digital cultures of the most vulnerable citizens
- The programmes of intervention must be intentional and speak to the needs of the people and seek to compliment or ignite previous interventions in such communities
- Support for developers and innovators must be guided by sound and vision-led processes that will seek to drive an easy uptake of the solutions in the society
- Design of the frameworks and policies must be informed by lived realities and that it is important to work with social structures and community builders.
The current and emerging markets will require AI Literacy (coupled with Digital Literacy) on citizens and thus, it is important that the excitement around AI does not limit nor leave anyone behind in this regard. Being AI Literate is measured by different factors but Geekulcha is most interested in how citizens use AI to support their developmental (or growth) goals. It is against this backdrop that Geekulcha had sought to establish a collaborative AI Literacy programme which comprises main of the following elements.
"Harnessing Intelligence for Sustainable Growth" is a Geekulcha focus theme for the year 2025 and is emulated across all the different native programmes and thus, the community is challenged to live up to the narrative.
1) AI Literacy on Sonke
The Sonke platform supports collaboration, project development, adjudication, growth and knowledge support at tech programmes and as such, an AI Literacy utility has been integrated onto the Sonke platform to provide the following:
- #CheckYourLevels: The continuous self-assessment of one's AI Literacy competence levels in respect of usage, skills, confidence and capacity pipeline
- Shaping the standards to help localise and unify development journeys of solutions in South Africa, especially those that are consumer-phasing
- Made In SA: A promotion of AI solutions tools made in South Africa and encouragement of local developers to be producers for local contexts
- ThoughtsHub to enable sharing of thoughts to unlock sustainable growth event to the most marginalised communities.
2) AI Literacy Training In Communities
As of February 2025, Geekulcha and its associated provincial ecosystems will be working with various partners across the country in driving AI Literacy training programmes even in rural and remote communities to support sustainable developmental and growth of the marginalised groups.
More collaborators are called upon to join hands in driving the AI Literacy journey in South Africa towards a capable developmental nation we want to see. Happy 2025 and Geekulcha wishes you all the best for the year ahead.