Kagisho co-founded Matric Live, an e-learning application for grades 10-12, in 2020 to provide underprivileged students from South Africa’s townships with educational support during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Matric Live emerged as a collaboration from Kagisho’s first project, CynC, and his co-founder Lesego’s own platform, as a hybrid to aggregate the educational resources they wished they had access to in their youth. Inequality in South Africa massively impacts the country’s education system. For every 100 learners, less than 50 pass the matric exam necessary to attend tertiary education, and only 14 make it to university.
Kagisho attended the One Young World Summit in Ottawa, 2016, which inspired him to take his first social enterprise, CynC, from an idea into a tangible product. He credits the One Young World Community in South Africa for helping to spread awareness of his work and extend his reach. He has also worked with fellow Ambassador Mandy Munchnick on her mental health platform, with the two collaborating on a campaign hosted on Matric Live for it.
Kagisho and his business partner decided to make Matric Live free during the first COVID-19 lockdown, and the platform quick;y grew to 630,000 users. As of 2022, the app has had over 1.1 million learners. The platform includes a learning component, and was the first to gain access to 57 government-approved study guides. It also includes a gamified learning component and exam simulations. Matric Live has partnered with South Africa’s Department of Basic Education, and has also launched learning tools for teachers, seeking to expand their reach to impact not only students.
“Had I not gone to the One Young World Summit in 2016, my project would have stayed an idea and MatricLive would not be what it is today. The Summit helped me do justice to my potential, I came back as a different man.”
