Kazi Tech Solutions

"A gamified platform connecting start-ups looking for affordable tech with student developer teams"

We believe that student developers are the largest untapped resource in our tech-driven society. The problem exists for two parties. 1) Student Developers. They lack practical experience that utilizes their skills in a way that can improve their employability in relevant industries. (i.e they become receptionists at Residences or waste time playing pc games). 2) Start-Ups: They find that it is expensive to build MVP's and they have a very limited know-how. 

The Solution: Kazi is a platform that connects Start-Ups looking for affordable tech with student dev-teams 

How will our solution change the world? It is no secret that the ICTs field not only in South Africa but Africa at large needs improvement and Kazi is enabling that improvement to take place. Kazi is helping alleviate the challenges that start-ups face by providing affordable tech. Kazi also up-skills       the student developers thus improving their employability. Kazi helps improve entrepreneurial skills by helping start-ups source and manage project developers and the project technical specification along with the project timeline. We are ensuring there is inclusivity and diversity in the ICTs field by targeting more women and people of colour in the space. We are providing youth employment(short term as student developers) but improving  youth employability by building a community of highly skilled student developers(long-term benefit). 

It is a process for solving the challenge. We focus on low-cost prototypes (alpha to beta versions) which traditional development houses primarily do not undertake.We use gamification to incentivize developer quality assurance through our Kazi XP Rating System. The rating system gives developers access to certain level of projects that they can do based on their reputation on the Kazi platform. We digitise the project management process for our student project managers to help them better manage the project timeline and client engagement. Project managers also go through a short upskilling process.

Technology is integral in our solution as the entire platform relies on technology. The technical specification takes place via technology and hence the project management thereof. There is an online quoting system for start-ups that gives a rough estimate of the project. The platform we want to create will have hosting services such as AWS.

We aim to expand our ambassador network and become active in universities across Joburg, Durban and the rest of the universities in Cape Town. There is already demand and developers in durban have joined the platform, and a student from WITS requested to take charge and expand Kazi into joburg and basically become the manager of Joburg division. This will help us sign on and upskill as many developers as possible across these areas. We aim to have 1000 developer signing up and upskilling within the next 12 months. 

Kazi is building a community of highly skilled student developers and in the medium-term, will look to handle the recruitment process of these talented young developers.In the medium term, we are looking to focus on specialised skills like AI, Blockchain, Security, Data Science & Analytics development.In the long-run the upskilling methodologies, project management systems and digitised processes designed by kazi will be used to allow not only student developers to take on projects but to also allow people who attended a coding academy or who are self-taught developers/ graduates to create clusters and build tech for startups.

Autonomy and self-contained communities is a critical part of Kazi scalability strategy. Each developer team is autonomous and assigns itself a team-lead. Kazi sets up an ambassador network across campuses worldwide. Each university campus acts as a node in a city where the campus ambassador manages a group of project managers who oversee the timelines and client-engagement for the developer teams in the university on behalf of Kazi.For now, clients in a particular city will be assigned developers and a project manager from a university nearest to them.

1.Mentorship Module.

2.Timon

3.Lindsay

4.Sanlam = R52 500

The four above are existing projects and we are assisting with web and MVP development respectively. Prospective projects are from Silicon Cape,Nisa Finance, Art Africa and Agora. 

We expect to be serving 8 including the 4 prospective projects. We plan on increasing this number from 8 and we would like to include Investec with hackathons. We would like to approach Santam/IBM they have orchestrated hackathons. We would like to approach Linum Labs for ups killing our developers. We would like to increase the number to over triple the number currently in three years time. We would like to garner more partnerships with incubators to provide tech support to their start-ups.

We have 3 individuals studying towards computer science degrees and information systems. We have entrepreneurs such as Thando who also founded Nisa Finance and Akhil with CareerNukes with deals with the recruitment platform that is in the long-term vision of Kazi. We have Mihlali who is a community lead for EngineOne and will utilize her expertise in the expansion of the ambassador network to other campuses.

The Short Term:

Revenue is generated from development work(Equity mix occasionally: Start-Ups have two payment options where they can make payment in cash or else take an equity option).

Incubators and Early Stage Investors pay Kazi cash to build MVPs for Start-Ups they invest in or support.

The Long Term:

Corporates- Recruitment fees from selling databases of graduated student developers with Kazi Industry exposure and skills.

We are applying to solve because we believe that the work that Kazi does and aims to do is in line with what Solve aims to achieve through the organizations selected. 

Kazi aims to upskill student developers and thus increase their employability.

Kazi's long term aim is to not have student developers only but also self-taught developers or individuals who attended coding academies this aligns to your desire to develop inclusive platforms.

Kazi aims to ensure their is inclusivity via ensuring that more women and people of color are in the ICTs field.

Legal support associated with setting up template contracts to make them as robust as possible. Financial management. Need advice and support that can allow us to scale with the financial models. We need upskilling resources and avenues such as developer events and hackathons that can engage developers and make them more talented and employable. Giving access to enabling technologies/services such as templates for developers and hosting services such as AWS. Kazi couldn’t afford digital hosting services after 3 months of its launch.we need resources and teams to be able to expand to other campuses across South Africa.