Transforming the Siyabuswa community centre into a smart centre

Abstract

The concept of a smart centre describes a facility that optimally uses advanced technologies and innovations as well as streamlined processes in order to address challenges faced by communities. Jackie envisioned the establishment of a Digital Village as the foundation for the SEIDET Smart Community Centre in Siyabuswa. This Digital Village would consist of a substantial expansion of the present SEIDET offering. The educational offering at the envisaged smart centre would be drastically scaled up in relation to the present offering, and there would be a big drive to promote entrepreneurship in the community of Siyabuswa. These undertakings were being considered in order to contribute to the socio-economic development of the area of Siyabuswa. This was indeed a challenging task for Dr. Phahlamohlaka to get SEIDET to achieve its potential and to address some of the big challenges in the community of Siyabuswa. For a community development agency such as SEIDET to achieve its objective of morphing the present community centre into a smart community centre, there were some key questions that Jackie needed to address. These questions were: (1) How could SEIDET leverage or create affordable cyber network infrastructure in the envisaged smart centre? (2) How could the smart centre assist the local community and individuals in the community to be enabled to participate in local economic development? (3) How could SEIDET get the local government administration, traditional leaders and the local community to buy-in to this smart centre development project in order to ensure its sustainability?