Ten minutes of class time is enough to start.
Your learners build a live website that solves a problem in their own community, and pitch it in a short video. Nothing for you to mark.
It is not assessed, it does not feed a formal task, and there is nothing for you to mark.
A live site, a pitch video, and a problem worth solving
That is the entry. Working out what to build and who it is for is the hard part, and that part is theirs.
Pick a real problem
In their own community. Something they can name, affecting someone they can point to.
Build it with AI
They use an AI tool to build a live website that solves it. No coding involved.
Record the pitch
A 60 to 120 second video explaining the problem and showing what they built.
What a real entry looks like
Youth and Education
A matric learner who does not know what to study, or where the bursaries are.
Township Economy
A spaza shop nobody can find online. A trader with no way to take an order.
Health and Wellbeing
The clinic queue. Finding health information you can actually trust.
Safety and Environment
A community safety tool. Illegal dumping. A local environmental problem.
Digital Access and Inclusion
Helping a gogo use her phone. Reaching someone the internet left behind.
A reason to use skills you already teach
It is not assessed, it does not feed a formal task, and it does not touch your scheme of work. There is nothing for you to mark.
What it does is give a learner a reason to frame a problem properly, and explain it to someone who has never heard of it. It sits naturally alongside:
- Life Orientation. Especially Grade 11 and 12, where the question is what comes next.
- Business Studies and EMS. The Township Economy theme is a trading problem with a real customer.
- Technology, CAT and IT. Enrichment, not assessment.
- English. The pitch video is an oral, and a low-stakes one.
If it fits nowhere on your timetable, ten minutes at the start of a period is still enough.
Nothing, and here's the time, precisely
Most teachers will do the first one. That is fine.
Minutes
Tell your class it exists
Share the link. That is a complete contribution, and it is more than most learners will ever get.
Lesson
Run the deck and worksheet
Run the ten-minute deck, then the worksheet. Learners leave with a problem they actually care about. Both are in the pack.
Term
Class build or after-school club
Weekly check-ins. The pack has a progress tracker for the wall.
Free. Register once and we email it to you.
No account, no login. It's the last form you will fill in.
The most common failure is a problem that's too big
A learner says "unemployment." Or "crime." Nothing can be built for that. Your job is to shrink it until it is a person.
Ask them this
“Who exactly is stuck, and what do they do right now instead?”
What a good build looks like
- ✓ One specific person, one specific frustration
- ✓ A site that does one thing properly instead of five badly
- ✓ A pitch about the person they're helping, not the tool they used
- ✓ Conviction over polish. The rubric is built that way deliberately
What not to do
- ✕ Do not write the prompt for them
- ✕ Do not appear in the video
- ✕ Do not submit on their behalf
- ✕ Do not tidy up their English. You'll strip out the conviction being scored
A learner watching a classmate's site load on a phone does more than any email we could send.
Let them show each otherMost learners who register won't submit
That is true of every competition. It is also where a teacher makes the difference.
Earlier than 15 February. End of January is better.
Who has started. Who is stuck. That is the whole intervention.
The progress tracker is in the pack. Names go up when a site goes live.
A learner watching a classmate's site load on a phone beats anything we could send.
Schools close 9 December. Submissions close 15 Feb 2027. Most of that gap is a holiday, and it is where learners quietly disappear. The first week back in January is the highest-leverage moment in the whole competition. If you do one thing, do that one.
Parents will ask you before they ask us
So here it is plainly.
Parental consent is required
No learner under 18 can submit without it. The learner enters a parent's mobile number, the parent gets an SMS, reads a plain-language summary, and taps to consent. Timestamped and recorded.
What is shown publicly
The build, the pitch video, the theme, and the learner's first name. Never a surname. A learner can ask for their school name to be suppressed. No public comments anywhere, and every build carries a report button.
What we do with it
Set out in full in the privacy notice. The short version: we do not sell it, and a learner or parent can ask for it to be deleted.
The whole competition, on one timeline
Frequently asked questions
No. No entry fee for the learner, nothing for the school, and the pack is free.
Ten minutes. That's all it takes.
Get the pack, show it to your principal, and send your learners to register their interest.
Registration opens 30 November. Until then, learners register their interest.