Director of IT varsity Maseehullah Kathrada was awarded the top prize by IBM’s judges at the 2015 IBM Youth Innovation Challenge which was held at the University of KwaZulu Natal in Durban from the 25th to the 29th of May 2015.
The Youth Innovation Challenge, an initiative of ‘Innovate Durban’ in partnership with IBM, the eThekwini Municipality, the Sustainable Enterprise Development Facility (SEDF) and the Government of Flanders, focused on supporting youth driven technology businesses.
The theme of the Innovate Durban- ’Hackathon’ event was ‘Smarter eThekwini’. This supports the agenda of ‘Open Government’ and ‘Open Data’ and in this way supporting engagement by the eThekwini Municipality with its citizens.
The event was booked to capacity, and attracted developers and students from around the country. Nine teams participated in the Challenge, and each team was tasked with developing a technology-based solution to one major challenge facing the city and its citizens.
Maseehullah was instrumental in developing WorkerBee, a social app that linked skilled artisans to potential clients. WorkerBee is like LinkedIn, but for artisans.
Maseehullah, who ventured into the technological world at a very early age, is also the co-founder of Compukids and has an impressive portfolio, including that of web developer, graphic designer, online tutor, content creator and tech entrepreneur.
As he reflected on this amazing moment, Maseehullah said he was always inspired by this quotation by Steve Jobs : “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”
