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PEOPLE'S POST | CONSTANTIA | WYNBERG Tuesday, 7 November 2017
CONSTANTIA
Teen stars in digital challenge
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ocal learners were amongst the most promising entrepreneurial teenagers who were celebrated at the Allan Gray Entrepreneurship Challenge awards over the weekend. The challenge is aimed at nurturing the entrepreneurial mindsets of the country’s youth with a series of online challenges that put 4500 high school learners to the test. The top 20 performers from around the country were acknowledged at the awards. Kai Parsons, a learner of Cedar House School in Kenilworth, won the challenge with second and third spot going to two learners from Bridge House in Franschhoek. Fourth place was taken by Maria Litchtenberg of Reddam House School in Constantia and fifth place was won by Nikita Roberts of Rustenberg Girls’ High School in Rosebank. The Western Cape was the top performing province in the challenge, with nine learners in the overall top 20, followed by Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal with five candidates each. The inaugural challenge, used to creatively coach high school learners to think entrepreneurially, was regarded as a success by organisers and proves to them that webbased, experiential learning is an effective way to foster a culture of entrepreneurship among South Africa’s youth. According to the competition’s Anthony Selley, a hundred schools from around the country participated in the six-week challenge, which ran from 14 August to 22 September. The challenge used digital learning to nurture an entrepreneurial mindset among learners in Grades 8 to 11 and to educate them on how best to act and think like entrepreneurs. Teachers and parents who support the spirit of entrepreneurship among children were also encouraged to sign up and
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Winning film is tribute
Promising entrepreneurs competed recently and a local learner came fourth nationally. participate. “We are enormously encouraged by the enthusiasm shown by both learners and teachers. To have participation from schools representing a wide spectrum of socio-economic and geographic situations in our inaugural year justifies our belief that web-based learning offers an effective way to grow entrepreneurial learning for teenagers from all walks of life,” Selley says. The entrepreneurship challenge comprised a series of small challenges measured on a points system. Selley explains that more complex challenges were worth more points, but to reach the difficult phases, candidates needed to pass the easy ones first. Each week candidates logged onto a website to complete
a series of challenges, which took between 15 minutes to an hour to complete. During each challenge, participants were exposed to a range of mindsets, habits and concepts for entrepreneurs, as well as to some of the latest tech developments on platforms like Blockchain, digital biology, artificial intelligence, the “internet of things” and 3D printing. He says some challenges were theoretically based, others were practically based and some involved uploading images. “The success of the challenge demonstrates that our youth see the great value that lies in entrepreneurship, especially as a vehicle for change for our country,” Selley says.
I had the wonderful honour of working with the first lead tenor of colour, the late Ronald Theys who died in 2014. We met initially at Spes Bona High School in Athlone in 1977, performing Shakespeare’s The Tempest, starring Denise Newman as Miranda, Alexander Sinton High English teacher Robert Green as Prospero and Reggie Norris (who later emigrated to Australia) as Caliban, and again the following year at the Eoan Group performing in the production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Ronnie Theys, an opera tenor of note, was cast in acting roles with me. He lived in Mitchell’s Plain and worked for Montays Furnishers. His love for opera never waned, despite the adversities of apartheid while growing up in District Six, and he proudly educated me in his craft and the Eoan Group’s historical visit to Europe with my cousin, soprano singer Vera Gow. Ronnie was a prankster too, and I enjoyed his humour. My last encounter with Ronnie was in London in July 1998, when he was invited with his tenor colleagues to perform in Brighton. I’m proud of his son Nathan’s epic achievement of winning at the Cape Town International Film Market and Festival, and Ronnie would have been equally proud. May Nathan’s film be successful and Ronnie’s memory live long – a befitting tribute to his legacy. MARK KLEINSCHMIDT Kenwyn
Give care for need not age Although admirable that JP Smith, Mayco member for safety, security and social services, launched “better health services” (“Elderly in front of health queue”, People’s Post, 24 October), the practice is deemed both biased and non-compliant as, according to legislation, all citizens become elders at 60. The process of fast-tracking and prioritising elderly individuals based on age rather than needs should also be reviewed, as a patient with a managed chronic illness such as hypertension or diabetes or collecting medication at the dispensary of a healthcare facility needs a different approach to one suffering from chest pains of an impending heart attack for which the window period is dire. The belief is that there should be ongoing communication with both the families assisting the elderly patients and all healthcare practitioners to ensure congruence at the referral stage to alleviate the trauma and negative impact of a day hospital visit, for whatever reason, experienced by the community at large. URSULA SCHENKER Plumstead X1U13NKA-QK071117