Over 50 000 youth participate in #Coding4Mandela

By Tangible Africa

From 30 learners in 2018 in Gqeberha to over 50 000 young people from across Africa and Southeast Asia in 2025; this is the incredible growth that the #Coding4Mandela movement has shown.

The annual event hosted by Tangible Africa reached 6 000 youth in 2022, and in 2024 a total of 32 000 young people participated.

This year’s event targeted a wide range of learners with three components: tangible coding tournaments, interactive Madiba themed lessons in class as well as the popular #Coding4Mandela dance.

Tangible Africa is an engagement project of Nelson Mandela University Computing Sciences Department and the Leva Foundation, headquartered in Gqeberha. Very little online resources are needed to play their coding games, Rangers and Juicy Gems to encourage the development of 21 st century skills by learning through play.

“Our vision is to make the #Coding4Mandela movement an annual, national event in South Africa, preparing teachers and learners for the roll-out of the gazetted Coding and Robotics curricula,” said Tangible Africa Founder Prof Jean Greyling.

Coding tournaments to culminate in World Champs

With teachers, learners of all ages and parents joining in on the fun, the #Coding4Mandela song and dance was performed across the continent, on sports fields, in school halls and classrooms – even at the Union Buildings in front of the Mandela statue.

A R6000 cash prize was awarded to the most “WOW” video, which was received by Sasolia Primary School in Kinross, Mpumalanga.

As part of an ongoing project where Tangible Africa distributes free CAPS aligned lessons to schools via a Chatbot, learners could also participate by doing interactive Madiba lessons in class. The Chatbot currently has over 3000 registered teachers, and #Coding4Mandela will increase the weekly implementation of lessons in classrooms across the country.

For his enthusiastic participation, Mr Elgin Fortuin from Diazville Primary School will be honoured at the Tangible Africa Gala Dinner in Cape Town in November. Six schools will also be receiving coding kits worth R6500 each from Tangible Africa.

For the first time, learners from pre-schools also participated in #Coding4Mandela by taking part in lessons specifically prepared for them. Caryn Korkee from the Little Angels Day and Educare in Humansdorp said: “The learners eagerly participated in both giving and following coding instructions. It was encouraging to see how they were able to complete individual activities, and to observe the progress they made in learning. Applying coding in lessons has opened a new way of teaching and learning in my classroom.”

Once again, the flagship component of #Coding4Mandela was different tangible coding tournaments that were presented using either the Rangers or Juicy Gems apps. These tournaments varied from small events at schools to regional tournaments involving over 500 learners at one venue. Winners of these tournaments now go through to a virtual national championship on 28 August, followed by the World Champs on 30 September where over 25 countries will be represented.

Lasting impact

“Although the numbers and mass scale participation are exciting, the real value behind this event is the impact it has on schools, teachers and learners,” said Prof Greyling.

This ranges from a short “Thanks for the great event this morning”-WhatsApp from a learner in a township, to a matriculant who received a full study bursary from a Nelson Mandela University graduate. This learner and his team have been achieving in tournaments since Grade 8, which convinced him to study a BSc Computer Science in 2026. Many schools have been running coding clubs and various other coding activities after participating in previous tournaments.

CEO of the Leva Foundation, Ryan le Roux, says that the excitement of the national

tournament has now caught global attention. “At the World Champs we expect teams from over 25 countries to participate.”

For more information on Tangible Africa’s ongoing coding support for teachers, email

info@levafoundation.org