The Board

More about our 2025-2027 Board Members

Thabang Ngwenya – University of Pretoria

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thabang-ngwenya/

Ecosystem-as-one-vehicle (Systems-Led Ecosystem Building for Social Innovation)

I serve as a SASEE board member committed to engineering education that works in the real world by building an integrated ecosystem that connects schools, universities, communities, and enterprises into one coordinated development pathway. I approach engineering education as a living system where governance, stakeholder partnerships, teaching, mentorship, and entrepreneurship reinforce one another rather than operate as isolated interventions.

University level: where the ecosystem’s engine runs

At the university level, I facilitate learning for third-year Industrial Engineering students (Supply Chain Engineering) and lead stakeholder engagement within a community engagement JCP module. The vision is to make the classroom the place where the ecosystem’s engine runs:  students apply engineering thinking to community-defined challenges and build real capability to deliver in complex human systems where constraints include people, trust, resources, and multiple stakeholders.

I have intentionally shaped this approach, so it serves the classroom as much as it serves the community. Community engagements are structured as teaching cases and delivery-based learning experiences that strengthen core competencies such as systems thinking, problem framing, stakeholder alignment, ethical decision-making, and implementation discipline. In doing so, these projects develop mentors, future entrepreneurs, and practitioners who can move from education into measurable community impact and sustainable enterprise.

Community and school level: strengthening the STEM foundation

At the community and school level, I co-lead and govern programmes through Keep That Gold Shining (KTG) that unlock learner potential through academic support, mentorship, technological support, and career guidance. This strengthens the foundation of the ecosystem—supporting young people early so more learners can enter, persist, and succeed in STEM pathways, while also giving university students a meaningful platform to serve, mentor, and grow into values-driven leaders.

In parallel, I serve as a board member at Marketplace Academy (MPA).  MPA focuses on transforming communities into economic hubs by building the skills needed for employment and innovation directly addressing South Africa’s unemployment challenge. A key lever in this work is strengthening mathematics development, because mathematics is not only an academic subject; it is a national capability that underpins economic productivity, problem-solving, and workforce readiness.

What makes this model powerful is how these efforts integrate into a single delivery pipeline through the university’s community engagement platform. With tangible scale, at least 200 university students contribute a minimum of 40 hours each in structured support of school-level mathematics programmes. This is not ad-hoc volunteering, it is organised, supervised, and built into a learning system that benefits both sides: learners receive consistent academic support and mentorship, while students develop real capabilities in leadership, stakeholder engagement, and delivery in complex community environments. Across the broader ecosystem, 800–900 students support programmes that serve at least 15 schools in Gauteng.

Enterprise and economic development: translating learning into livelihoods

At the enterprise and economic development level, I translate this pathway into ownership, innovation, and sustainable livelihoods through Own and Manage. The purpose here is supporting young people and emerging professionals to build viable ventures, measure impact, manage risk, and become competent “owners and managers” of systems that improve communities. Through Infinite Vumisa Agro, I extend the ecosystem into food security and township/rural development, demonstrating how engineering thinking, technology adoption, skills transfer, and ethical practice can combine into practical local economic growth.

The lens connecting all this work is systems thinking for behaviour change and sustainable development. I focus on three high-leverage areas where community impact can scale when paired with an entrepreneurial mindset: Education, Agriculture, and Medicine/Health. The goal is not only to run projects, but to build community-to-economy bridges empowering township and rural communities with skills, tools, and enterprise capability. And also while opening structured opportunities to collaborate with and participate in the mainstream economy through partnerships, supply chains, and scalable service models

This is ongoing work, now in its second iteration continuously refined through feedback, sustainability thinking, and collaboration, with the long-term intent of producing systemic change that genuinely empowers individuals and communities.

Engineering education is the activity of teaching and learning engineering and technology, at school, college and university levels. The goal of engineering education is to prepare people to practice engineering as a profession, to spread technological literacy, and to increase student interest in technical careers through science and math education and hands-on learning.