City of Tshwane bags international award for TshWi-Fi TV

FIRE Africa is an African grants and awards programme and is designed to encourage, support and develop innovative online solutions to Africa’s needs.

Tshwi-Fi TV was acknowledged by the programme as an innovative collaboration between the City of Tshwane and Tobetsa, Project Isizwe’s content partner. The citizen journalism project – which brings hyper-local education and entertainment videos to Tshwane’s Free Wi-Fi users via the TshWi-Fi.co.za portal – won the award for being an internet service that promotes social inclusion, strengthens democracy and allows for the exercise of rights and freedoms.

TshWi-Fi TV is at the heart of TshWi-Fi.co.za, a short-form video initiative that facilitates learning and skills development for young aspiring filmmakers from local communities. Together they have created more than 600 original videos with the increasing viewership consistently above 20,000 video views per month.

TshWi-Fi TV’s short-format shooting process, low production costs and focus on content that matters to local communities means that that unique and highly relevant videos can be produced. The model is continually being evolved, and development is centered on building a sustainable model that will be able to be replicated across South Africa.

The award encourages Tobetsa to continue to align content on its portals with the Wi-Fi TV offering, to create a digital ecosystem that supports local communities by giving them access to information they can use to improve their lives.