‘Robotics for all’ one step closer

Unisa’s drive to introduce robotics to communities in all the indigenous languages is growing apace following a recent Xitsonga workshop

* Image: pxhere.com

Inspired towards Science, Engineering and Technology (I-SET), a community engagement flagship project of the College of Science, Engineering and Technology in collaboration with Delvah Mathevula, a lecturer in the department of African Languages from the College of Human Sciences at Unisa, hosted a seminar on the introduction to robotics in Xitsonga on Thursday, 01 April 2021 via Microsoft Teams.  This follows on the presentation of an Introduction to Robotics in Sepedi hosted by Napjadi Letsolalo in 2020.

The aim of the I-SET project is to engage with robotics in communities in 11 South African official languages, in schools and NGOs.

This initiative promotes engagement with learners involved in the basics of robotics in their home languages.

Attending the seminar was an invited guest Muklondleteri Dumela, a software developer and founder of Xitsonga.org dictionary that is aimed at digitising and teaching people the Xitsonga language.

In September 2020, Delvah Mathevula was interviewed on SACB’s radio Munghana Lonene FM where he discussed the impact of the fast-growing technology on the development of Xitsonga. He also indicated that as language practitioners they are working around the clock to ensure that their languages are not left behind.

This is an exciting journey for I-SET, and everyone is looking forward to the starting of this project to do robotics in all 11 languages.

* By Andzani Sibiya, I-SET Communication Administrator