The International Telecommunications Union HQ (Geneva) played host to the WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) 2019 Forum. As part of the 4 day summit, there was a hackathon on Hacking Solutions for Lifelong Learning and Livelihoods.

The aim of this competition was to come up with innovative ideas that could go a long way in solving one of the world’s major development challenges: achieving universal education.

A team of students from Zimbabwe walked away with the Most Creative Idea Award. The Zimbabwean students who were part of the winning team are:

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Isaac Gadzimbe – University of Zimbabwe

Kudakwashe Paradzayi – Harare Institute of Technology

Charmaine Kumbirayi – National University of Sciences and Technology

The hackathon had students from over 20 countries taking part, with the Zimbabweans having their travel expenses, accommodation along with insurance being covered by the telecoms regulator POTRAZ.

Congratulations to our young techpreneurs participating in the Hackathon for winning the prestigious award for The Most Creative Application Idea. Zimbabwean students from NUST, UZ and HIT teamed up with Iran and contested in a brainstorming contest under the name PeerED — Hon. Kazembe Kazembe (Ministry of ICT) (@KazembeKazembe3) April 8, 2019

ICT Permanent Secretary, ENG Kundishora and POTRAZ DG , Dr Machengete pose for a photo with Team Zimbabwe soon after the students won the Most Creative Idea Award during the ongoing WSIS19 forum in Geneva #innovationdrive pic.twitter.com/89DKzww5b2 — Potraz (@Potraz_zw) April 8, 2019

















The team worked on a platform that improves the learning experience in overcrowded schools suffering from teacher shortages. Instead of relying entirely on a teacher, the platform allows students to teach each other interactively. Students can create their own content (i.e questions) which can then be answered by their peers all on one platform.

This means that in classes of 45-60+ students, learners still have an opportunity to get unique and extra learning materials that can compensate for the teacher’s attention, which is obviously limited in such scenarios.