2. The TAQA digital library

By Niémah Davids & Karin van Laeren

Qhawe Bula and his team developed TAQA, a unique digital library of readalong children’s audiobooks produced in South Africa’s 11 official languages and hosted on an app.

South Africa faces enormous literacy challenges: 78% of grade 4 learners can’t read for meaning. Research indicates that children are likely to learn a second language much faster if they have a firm grasp of their mother tongue. TAQA helps improve children’s ability to read in their mother tongue, which, in turn, helps them to learn how to read and understand a second language much easier.

Breaking barriers

“With TAQA we really want to help grow a love and affinity for reading and improve children’s competencies in their mother tongue,” said Qhawe. “We want to break down language barriers. They still exist, and doing it will solve many of our problems.” Qhawe said that TAQA believes in the importance of preserving indigenous languages. “Languages are far more than just a medium of instruction. They are holders of spirit, thought, imagination and the history of our people.”

Partnerships

The business has already partnered with internationally recognised, award-winning literacy non-profit organisation Nal’ibali to provide a series of audiobook podcasts produced in seven South African languages. “Without a shadow of a doubt, the most exciting thing for us has been the launch and continuance of the TAQA podcast and our partnership with Nal’ibali in doing so,” said Qhawe.

In the future they would like to also partner with the government and other organisations.

Pivot

Qhawe explains that TAQA began in 2018 as a company that did translations from English into African languages and vice versa. “We did this for around a year and did fairly well but felt we were making minimal impact and the business idea was not very scalable in manual form,” he said. “We then pivoted in late 2019 and focused on building a digital library of children’s video books.”

Now, they are in the process of developing a Prototype of the TAQA app. “We are very excited to roll out our first pilot project in the coming months. Our second focus at this point is to build a community of people who believe in our vision.”

Advice to budding entrepreneurs

Qhawe says that the best advice he has received is to start with what you have. “Try to find a way to deliver some of your value proposition to customers without requiring funding,” he said, explaining, “In our experience, it is often difficult to raise funds if you do not have a kind of proof of concept and something that demonstrates your commitment to potential funders.

He also advises entrepreneurs to be fluid and open to change.

“While I think it is important to maintain your core values and vision, we have found joy in pivoting and being able to imagine alternative ways of achieving our ends.”

Listen to the TAQA audiobooks here: soundcloud.com/user-840399632