Homewise youth competition winner announced

Since taking office at the end of May 2019, I adopted a radical approach in how we deal with human settlements, as it’s important to me that we accelerate human settlement delivery and promote social inclusion through the development of integrated, resilient and sustainable human settlements in an open society.

Three key drivers were identified. They are

1. Radical Acceleration of Housing Opportunities
2. Radical Implementation of Innovative Solutions and
3. An Integrated Approach to Human Settlements

Our radical does not refer to becoming militant, instead we’re saying there’ll be a significant push towards getting our people into houses, and also towards giving people ownership through Title Deeds, as in both instances, we are creating a better life for our people, while also restoring the dignity of our residents, given our past injustices.

As a firm believer in using technology optimally, particularly for the advancement of our people, I requested that an APP be developed, so that our citizens can easily access information on government housing assistance. As we believe in inclusive governance with our residents, we extended an opportunity to the youth of this province, through a competition, to assist us with the development of this APP.

Therefore, on 23 July, we launched our exciting HomeWise Youth Competition, requesting young people between the ages of 16 and 35 to design the mock-ups, prototypes or wireframes of the APP, which is the user experience and user interface (UX and UI) and not the development of the entire APP.

Entries closed on 30 August.

We had a large number of queries and online impressions, of which 20 entries met all the criteria. It was particularly pleasing to note the interest from our rural towns, such as Heidelberg, Stellenbosch, George and Worcester, just to name a few. Pursuant to a rigorous, yet fair evaluation process, three entrants were shortlisted, as they scored the highest with their designs.

They are Cynthia Augustine from Pinelands, Annabela Bekker from Constantia and Anesu Malisa from Bellville. I’d like to express my sincere gratitude to all young people who took the time to enter our competition. I would also like to congratulate the three young people, present here today, for applying innovative thinking and delivering exceptional creativity.

Aspects of the designs will now be incorporated into the final development of our APP. We envisage having a trial version available by the end of the year, with a full launch in April 2020.

Today is a proud moment for us as a Department, as we’ve been able to engage with some of the best and pioneering young techies in this province. Initially our intention was to only award the winner of this competition – however, we have since decided to handover prizes to the top three.

As the Western Cape Government, we remain committed to accelerating human settlement delivery, while promoting social inclusion through the development of integrated, resilient and sustainable human settlements in an open opportunity society.

From three to one:

• 3rd Runner-up: Cynthia Augustine
• 2nd Runner-up: Annabela Bekker
• 1st Prize Winner: Anesu Malisa