A learner can put in more effort without seeing it reflected in their marks. A student can spend much of a short lunch break trying to find an affordable meal. Nkosinathi Temba and Phuti Maraba have built businesses around those familiar frustrations, using technology to make progress easier to see and campus food easier to order.
Temba’s Thuto.io rewards learners for academic improvement with Thuto Coins. The platform also offers AI tutoring and lets parents and teachers follow a learner’s progress. Its approach recognises something marks alone can miss: a learner who moves from struggling badly to understanding the basics has made progress, even if they’re still nowhere near the top of the class.
The rewards could give learners a reason to keep going, but Thuto.io’s educational value depends on what happens after they log in. Can its tutor work out where a learner is stuck and help them understand the material? Can teachers use the progress information without taking on more administrative work? Those are more demanding tests than whether learners enjoy earning coins.
Access presents another test. Temba told ITWeb earlier this year that parents paid R50 per learner per month. That may be manageable for some families and difficult for others, particularly if data costs come on top of it. HelloAida faces a similar challenge: a useful AI tutor still needs to reach learners with limited money and unreliable connectivity.
Maraba’s Munchiez tackles a different part of student life. Its platform connects students ordering food with campus vendors and student delivery partners. Maraba says he wanted to make an everyday task easier, and the idea has an appeal for vendors too: an order placed through an app gives them a way to reach customers who may never walk past their stall.
The business says it has more than 400 registered users. Registrations show interest, though regular orders would say more about whether students have made Munchiez part of their routine. The service also has to work for the people preparing and delivering the food. A convenient meal for the buyer only makes for a durable business if the vendor and delivery partner earn enough from it.
Both founders have been featured through Nedbank’s YouthX programme, which gives young entrepreneurs exposure and access to support. The 2026 YouthX Awards are accepting entries, with eligibility requirements listed on the programme’s website. The draft supplied for this article didn’t include an entry closing date, and none is shown on the awards page, so applicants should check the site before entering.
Thuto.io and Munchiez started with problems their founders understood firsthand. As they grow, the measure will be whether learners keep learning and students keep ordering, while the people helping to deliver each service find it worthwhile too.