Hackathons

Enabel Visits Belgium Campus Belgium Campus was delighted to welcome representatives from Enabel, the Belgian Development Agency, to our Pretoria campus on the 28th June 2019. The representatives included Managing Director, Jean Van Wetter, who upon completion of the tour expressed his astonishment with the projects at Belgium Campus. Enabel is a public agency which plays an instrumental role in the global mission for sustainable development. They do this by overseeing development projects for the account of the Belgian Government and other donors, with a specific focus on certain developing countries in Africa. Enabel has also assisted Belgium Campus by funding some of our student projects, including Smart Cities, a project aimed to help cities integrate different services to solve everyday problems faced by South African citizens. Belgium Campus students came up with an app that can be used by citizens to report issues within their municipality. The app was created in response to citizen frustrations at how long it takes for their issues to be addressed when they lodge a complaint telephonically, whether it be due to communication issues, power failures or misplacement of complaints lodged. The app makes communication between the Tshwane Municipality and citizens easier, which in turn helps to improve service delivery. The app provides citizens with a ticket number which allows them to track the progress of their complaint. It allows the municipality to keep track of what issues are outstanding and also allows them to track their resources, to ensure each issue is given immediate attention. The project is currently piloted on a population of 3000. Once the testing phase is complete it will be rolled out to all 3,275 million citizens in Tshwane, immensely improving service delivery Enabel’s governmental development cooperation with South Africa has come to an end but they will continue to work with individuals and NGOs. We are privileged to have had the opportunity to work with them.