NOVAR joins IBM Enterprise Development Programme as Liberty commits R1 million to scale South African e-learning, but the real story lies in the gap between that support and the system that forced two founders to build a computer out of scrap to get here.
In April, a video of two young South African men went viral. It showed them booting up an old computer in a village with no fibre, explaining how they built it with R700 and parts salvaged from scrapyards. Then it cut to the app they created: NOVAR, a free interactive e-learning platform used by tens of thousands of learners. The video racked up over three million views, was reshared by politicians and influencers, and for a few days, it felt like the country had found its next innovation story.
Now, NOVAR has been officially inducted into IBM South Africa’s Enterprise Development Programme, with Liberty committing R1 million to support the startup’s next phase. Government applauded. The private sector cheered. But that should raise more questions than it answers.
Why did two self-taught coders in Limpopo have to build their own machine to gain access to education in the first place? Why does a startup with proven traction still rely on public sympathy to get resources? Why did it take a viral video to unlock institutional backing?
The truth is that NOVAR’s story is less about innovation and more about survival. Its founders — Shibambu Mikhongelo Marvel and Malunghelo Mathonsi — built the app not because the system worked, but because it failed them. And while their recent backing is deserved and overdue, it also reveals just how fragile the support structures are for startups outside of major metros.
NOVAR’s app, which offers free, curriculum-aligned learning resources, has over 50 000 downloads. It’s being used in schools, townships, and rural communities where textbooks remain scarce. But that traction was not enough, until recently, to open doors. It was the algorithm — not the state — that accelerated their journey.
That tension sits at the heart of South Africa’s tech ecosystem. The country is full of so-called high-potential youth, but the pathway from potential to product remains poorly lit unless a big brand shines a light. Even then, too often that light comes only after public attention has done the heavy lifting.
Government and private partners framed the NOVAR announcement as a blueprint for “whole-of-society” innovation. It’s a nice phrase. But the risk is that it lets institutions off the hook — as though virality, not infrastructure, is the delivery mechanism for opportunity.
Zeenat Dasoo, Executive Director of Transformation and Special Projects at IBM South Africa, says their development programme helps startups leverage global technology to scale. That’s valuable — but without consistent early-stage infrastructure and access, stories like NOVAR’s will remain the exception, not the ecosystem.
The NOVAR founders deserve every cent and every bit of support they’re now receiving. But if South Africa wants more stories like this, it will have to do more than celebrate the ones that accidentally go viral. It will need to interrogate the systems that make talent wait for visibility before receiving validation.
Because if building your own hardware is the precondition for building your own future, we’ve got bigger problems than bandwidth.