Kennedy's Big Plans for SA Education

- Sarah Koopman

​Kennedy Kitheka had a vision to create greater accessibility around education and academic content. Along with two friends, he came up with the idea of creating a technology platform that would provide free academic content for subscribers. The prototype took the shape of a Bluetooth hotspot at Wits University. Once in the hotspot area, students could download specific academic content free of charge. But as soon as they got the project off the ground, they seemed to hit a wall. “It wasn’t a business yet,” says Kennedy, aged 27. “At the time it was just an idea, and it wasn’t perfect, but we knew it had potential.”

It was in a 2011 Business Strategy course at the University of Cape Town that Kennedy saw the chance to harness that business potential. For a class competition, Kennedy worked in a group to develop a business proposal and strategy. It grew into a real-life business pitch and they won the competition, and with it, a prize of R30 000 in seed funding. Kennedy was now able to lay the foundations for Funda, a mobile app that curates curriculum support content tailored around students’ academic needs. He saw the gap for growth and, after signing the idea over from his group members and re-enlisting the support of the friends that he had launched the Bluetooth idea with, Kennedy embarked on his journey as an entrepreneur.