Dimakatso Mohapi

Community Youth Heroes

Nominee's Province:
Gauteng

Age:
24

Project Name/Description:
RunTechnology

More info:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohapi-dimakatso-364211125

Growing up in the dusty streets of Orange Farm in Johannesburg and raised by a single mother, Dimakatso Mohapi, 24, never thought she would ever work in the male-dominated industry of information technology. Now, she wants to encourage and show the next generation that anything is possible if one backs up passion with hard work. Mohapi is the founder of RunTechnology, a programme that teaches coding to grade 9 pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, mostly in her community. Through the programmes she conducts, Mohapi had taught more than 100 students since her organisation was formed in 2019. Her reason for continuing to teach learners to code comes as a passion and understanding that she also experienced challenges towards fulfilling her dreams, and she decided to contribute to the growth of other youngsters who are coming from poor households. “As a youngster with a vision and bigger dreams, it is pivotal for me to guide the youth and channel them to ICT [information and communications technology] and for them to learn about how technology and 4IR [Fourth Industrial Revolution] work,” says Mohapi. “It is important to mentor others who have never had opportunities to get into the ICT industry.”