South Africa is in a terrible state. We need big ideas to turn us into a winning nation again, one where we’re excited instead of fearful about the future. I have an idea that could help achieve that: give every child in South Africa a free slice of Raspberry Pi (RPi). Let me explain.
The RPi is a low-cost, single-board computer, introduced about 15 years ago and developed with the aim of teaching basic computer science principles in schools, especially in developing countries such as ours. About 40-million have been sold worldwide.
Developed by UK charity the Raspberry Pi Foundation in collaboration with chip giant Broadcom, the RPi fits in the palm of an adult’s hand, yet is a fully functional computer whose applications are limited only by the imagination of its users.
RPis can be bought online in South Africa for as little as a few hundred rand (for the most basic models), with more capable versions costing about R1,500 each — a fraction of the cost of a modern Windows laptop. Yet these tiny computers are fully functional, with built-in processors, memory, networking, storage and more.
They typically run a version of Linux, the powerful, free and open-source operating system that allows its users the freedom to tinker with technology, to learn to use software at its most fundamental level and to understand the concepts of modern computing. And they can be used to learn to code so as to build applications.
Ask many of those who have successful careers in IT today — be they software developers, cybersecurity specialists, systems analysts, chief information officers or even CEOs of global tech giants — and they will tell you they got where they are today because they had a computer at home when they were growing up.
They developed a passion for tech as children because they were fortunate enough to have had parents (or guardians) who had the foresight — and the financial means — to buy them a personal computer when they were young.
I built my career as a technology writer and media owner, and I pen this regular column in the FM, because I had the privilege of growing up around computers from a young age, starting with a Sinclair ZX81 in the early 1980s. The foresight of my parents to buy that machine and the others that followed defined my career path. It was fundamental in developing my lifelong passion for tech. Millions of young people in South Africa don’t have that opportunity, and that is an immense tragedy.
But it’s one we can fix with a little foresight and political will (something admittedly in desperately short supply in the South Africa of 2024).
Imagine taking a small portion of the tens of billions of rand the government ploughs every year into propping up zombie state-owned enterprises, and using that to fund a project to give every school pupil entering grade 6 an RPi.
Let’s run the numbers.
These tiny computers are fully functional, with built-in processors, memory, networking, storage and more
The Post Office, a hopelessly failed state-owned enterprise, is seeking a R3.8bn taxpayer-funded bailout. For what? That money could instead be used to buy a R1,500 RPi, with peripherals, for every grade 6 pupil in the country, with enough left over to pay for thousands of low-cost screens to connect to those computers.
Then also take the tens of billions of rand squandered each year propping up the likes of Eskom, Transnet, Denel and SAA — all entities that would be better off run by the private sector — and it’s clear the money is there.
Sadly, in today’s South Africa a project to deliver 2-million RPis annually would have the tenderpreneurs and crooked politicians salivating over the potential spoils. Instead of seeing this as a foundational project to build a better country, one that would equip our children for a future where technology is infused into every aspect of economic life, there’s every chance it would become another opportunity to loot and steal the future from under the noses of the next generation.
But that’s no reason to give up on big ideas. Our challenges, as insurmountable as they might seem, can be overcome with the right political leadership. It is likely to require a new administration, one with the desire to build the sort of country South Africans were hopeful was emerging after 1994. It can still be done. And empowering the nation’s next generation with the tools today to build a winning and competitive nation tomorrow would be a great place to start.
* McLeod is editor of TechCentral
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