Project Information
- Stakeholder: Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services
- Students: Thuto Leslie (SMU), Relilwe Semenya (Wits), Nkanyiso Mkhize (UKZN), Gomolemo Moagi (DTPS)
- Project Lead: Khopotso Mtwazi, Ishmael Makitla
- Project Mentors: Linda Khumalo
- Year: 2016/2017
Project Description
The Department of Telecommunication and Postal Services (DTPS) requires a visual data dashboard with illustrative graphic that depict progress made and evident shortfalls towards realizing the ICT vision by 2030. The objective of Project-Marang is to capture the evolution of the South African Information Society as it goes through time span especially through the development, moveover it aims to accelerate the socio-economic growth in South Africa. Project-Marang’s main objective is to digitize data from the National ICT policy and green papers; depict the trends for each ICT indicators by 2020; establish an electronic ICT storage and smart visual data dashboard with the aim of assisting DTPS track their achievements towards meeting the global ICT goals. During the first phase Project Marang team developed a dashboard with multiple statistical infor-graphic illustrations on uptake and usage of ICTs in South Africa visualising the aggregate of the state of ICT between the developing and developed countries in the world; and also provided statistical information on the state of access, usage by individual and communities in SA, network coverage, availability. Project-Marang team moreover focused on visualising the decrease in the digital division, provide ICT resource to the undeveloped society, reduce internet access cost, and also developed a prediction model with regards to the digital gap by the year 2030. The diagram below shows the proposed solution of Project-Marang:
Student Remarks
The students felt like the DSIDE program opened their eyes in terms of analysis and decision making and how data science relates to public policy and the redistribution of resources in the country. The DSIDE program helped the students regain their confidence building their characters the morning scrums where they discussed what they have done and planning to do, also helped with working as a team and getting out of their comfort zone. The students further felt the program gave them the skills to effectively communicate with their supervisors and Clients.
Author: Team + Nolihle Gulwa, B Tech Journalism, Walter Sisulu University.