By Thandi Makhubele
The last two years have been difficult for everyone – the world came to a halt as a result of the pandemic, which crippled every aspect of our lives, including businesses, the loss of loved ones, and challenging of our ways of life. As the situation improves and most of the world returns to the “new” normal, people are still trying to piece together what happened before everything came to a halt.
The Aspire Higher Project competition was one that was greatly impacted by the pandemic. While the four groups displayed an amazing capability to adapt to new methods of data collection, they faced challenges resulting from participating schools not being able to operate as normal. Despite these obstacles, the groups were able to carry out their strategies as outlined in their proposals, which were of benefit to young girls in the community of Tsakane, east of Johannesburg in South Africa. The Aspire Higher Project final judging event took place in April 2022. Following presentations and lengthy deliberations by the panel of partners and guest judges, the winner was announced- the Imbokodo Launch Pad, who received £80,000 to upscale its project. We extend our gratitude to Dr Michael Reid of Gilead Sciences, Peter Edwards of Reckitt, Alankar Malviya of UNAIDS, Aids activist Saidy Brown and entrepreneur DJ Sbu for assisting with the adjudication process.
As a research centre committed to seeking new and innovative ways to gather data and analyse it into a value-adding tool that supports decision making, we launched an operational and strategic Smartboard that will allow us to digitize and automate our delivery and monitoring. Members of the CAPSI team can now document the progress of their work, download reports, and check the status of their portfolios. This was delivered in partnership with Data Innovators.
The team is still striving to be one of the best on the African continent. 2023 presents an opportunity to continue meeting the Centre’s goals and mandate, while also improving its deliverables and discovering innovative ways to improve its projects and programmes. The launch of the Women in Philanthropy project is one of the things to look forward to – this is one of the initiatives that the Centre intends to launch in order to bridge gaps in research and gender on the African continent.
Click play to watch a summary video of the Aspire Higher Final Judging event.
