The Telkom Foundation today handed over a sophisticated, upgraded ICT Lab to the Steve Biko Foundation, boosting the organisation’s capacity to impact on its community – and the world – through training, skills development, and educational research.
The new Steve Biko Centre ICT Lab features 40 new workstations and new-generation digital connectivity, enabling the streaming of lectures, seminars, book launches, theatre, virtual tours, and educational content.
The handover is taking place during South Africa’s Heritage Month, a time when the nation reflects on its rich history and cultural legacy. This timing is especially poignant as it also coincides today with the burial of Steve Biko, the Black Consciousness leader and liberation-struggle icon for whose legacy the Steve Biko Foundation ensures continued relevance through programming locally and globally.
The Steve Biko Centre is the laboratory in which the community development organisation translates the principles of Black Consciousness into the praxis of practical programming. Located in Biko’s home township, Ginsberg in the Eastern Cape, it features a museum, performing and conferencing spaces, a restaurant, a library, a business centre, and it is the cornerstone of the Biko Heritage Trail.
The Centre, currently being graded by the South African Heritage Resources Agency as a national monument, describes its mission as “serving as an intellectual resource, while providing an economic opportunity for the region.”
Telkom Foundation is the CSI arm of Telkom. The organisation works with government, the private sector and schools to improve education in science, technology, English, and Mathematics – based on a shared conviction that digital skills and access are critical to equipping our youth for the future.
“At the Telkom Foundation, we believe the best way to make a difference for South Africa’s communities is by investing in education,” said Telkom Foundation Head, Judy Vilakazi, at the handover of the new ICT Lab. “We are proud to be able to do that through our partnership with the Steve Biko Foundation.”
Steve Biko Foundation Founder and Executive Trustee Nkosinathi Biko said that the new ICT Lab would benefit the community around Ginsberg and Qonce in multiple ways.
“This Lab is a game changer for this community,” he said. “It will provide access to learning and training material for teachers and for learners of all ages, especially unemployed youth. We now have more computers in the Centre’s community library, which will allow many more users to study, research, and apply for jobs or places at university.”
Biko anticipated that because the Centre is located in the Eastern Cape, a province with historically less than stellar connectivity and an underperforming school achievement record, the Telkom Foundation investment would have a massive impact.
“The ICT Lab will make the Steve Biko Centre a district connectivity hub and a global resource,” said Biko. “We are currently using VSAT connection, and plan to migrate to high-speed fibre in phase two. This upgrade will enhance the streaming quality of lectures, seminars, book launches, theatre performances, virtual tours, and other activities for users worldwide.”
The Telkom Foundation donation comes with complete hardware equipment requirements, all necessary training for Steve Biko Foundation staff, and connectivity to support digital learning in schools and universities across the province.
Biko said the improved connectivity would also enable the Centre’s rich library collection to become a digital as well as a physical asset.
“Our archived periodicals section boasts some of the rarest publications in the world, and is arguably the nation’s largest collection of information on Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement,” said Biko. “With increased connectivity, our physical offering could be expanded to more than 500,000 digital titles for researchers and students.”
He added, “The new partnership with Telkom has allowed us to revitalise and re-equip our e-learning centre, a vital next step in empowering our community with modern skills such as coding.”
“We are so excited to see this partnership with the Steve Biko Foundation come to life,” said Vilakazi. “We are committed to helping communities access knowledge through technology – so that more of South Africa’s people can play a meaningful role in building our society.”