Give the gift of tech

The partnership

Innovative Technologies Africa is a South African non-profit organisation working to give people from disadvantaged backgrounds access to technology skills. It runs free, community-driven IT workshops and basic computer-skills development — the foundational literacy that everything else in a digital economy assumes you already have. It operates at itafrica.org.za as an organisation in its own right; InnovaTech Group is a partner to it, not its owner, and this page exists to explain that relationship rather than to speak on its behalf.

What we contribute

Our contribution is capability rather than a cheque, because capability is what we have more of.

• Engineering and facilitation time. Our engineers run and support workshop sessions. People who build systems for a living teaching the first steps of using one is a better transfer than a slide deck.
• Equipment and infrastructure. Hardware that leaves our estate is refurbished and redeployed into the programme rather than disposed of, and we cover the hosting and infrastructure the organisation runs on.
• Curriculum and material support. Helping shape what gets taught so that it maps to work that actually exists — basic computer literacy, digital administration, the practical use of the tools employers assume.
• Pathways. The programme is where we look first when hybrid engineering hub capacity grows. That is a self-interested motive and we would rather state it than pretend otherwise: a narrow skills pipeline is a supply problem for us, and widening it is strategy as much as social contribution.

Why this is on an enterprise site

For mid-to-large South African organisations, Socio-Economic Development and Skills Development are line items on the B-BBEE scorecard, and procurement processes gate on them. A supplier's contribution in those categories is part of what a buyer is assessing, whether or not the topic comes up in the meeting.

So this page is written to be usable in a procurement review rather than as a CSR statement. Two consequences follow from that, and both are deliberate.

We keep the claims narrow. What is described here is what we actually do: engineering time, equipment, infrastructure, curriculum input and a hiring pathway. There are no participant numbers or outcome percentages on this page yet, because we would rather publish nothing than publish a figure we cannot evidence. Vague impact copy is worse than none in a procurement review — it invites exactly the scrutiny it cannot survive.

We publish figures as they become verifiable. Reach and outcomes will appear here as the programme's own records support them: sessions run, participants through the programme, and where people went afterwards. Until then, procurement teams can request our current B-BBEE documentation and supporting evidence directly with an RFP response.

Working with us on it

Three ways organisations get involved. Equipment — usable hardware coming off a refresh cycle goes further in a workshop than in a disposal contract. Facilitation — technical staff who can teach basic sessions, which costs a few hours and is the input the programme is shortest of. Funding — direct support to Innovative Technologies Africa, contracted with the NPO rather than through us.

If your organisation wants to place its own Socio-Economic Development contribution somewhere it can see the outcome, this is a reasonable place to start a conversation.