Zanele Mbuyazwe

South African tech entrepreneur revolutionizing education access through digital solutions.

Zanele Mbuyazwe is a visionary South African technologist and founder of Mbuyazwe Technologies, a company pioneering digital education solutions for rural communities. Born in 1978, Mbuyazwe developed the EduNet platform while studying computer science at the University of Cape Town, which earned her a 2002 Microsoft Innovation Award. This open-source system connects underserved schools with global educational resources via satellite internet, reaching over 500,000 students by 2019. TechCrunch highlighted her work in bridging South Africa's digital divide. Mbuyazwe's 2015 initiative Code for Change trained 10,000 township youth in coding, many now employed by major tech firms like Naspers. Her company's Mobile Learning Kiosks project, funded by the World Bank, provides offline access to Khan Academy content in isiXhosa and other local languages. Mbuyazwe's TEDx talk "Code the Future" has been viewed over 2 million times. She mentors through the Women in Tech Africa network, recently launching a scholarship fund for girls in STEM fields. Her innovations were featured in Forbes Africa's 2022 list of top EdTech disruptors.