Samsung Delivers Another Successful “Solve For Tomorrow” Design Thinking Workshops for 2026 with South Africa’s Public School Learners

Samsung has delivered yet another successful Solve for Tomorrow (SFT) Design Thinking Workshops for 2026, with a group of brilliant learners from various public schools in South Africa.

These Design Thinking Workshops which took place from 08 May until 15 June 2026 were effectively conducted at central venues in the provinces where this year’s Top 20 finalist schools are based – Gauteng (2 finalists), Limpopo (3), Free State (3), KwaZulu-Natal (2), Western Cape (2), Eastern Cape (1), North West (4), Northern Cape (1) and Mpumalanga (2).

The Samsung SFT Design Thinking workshops are highly collaborative and human-centric problem-solving sessions. They are structured around a hands-on and community-focused problem-solving approach that seeks to teach participating grade 10 and 11 school learners to empathise, define, ideate, prototype and test.

This year’s SFT competition is driven by two themes: “Social Change through Sports and Technology” which ensures that the power of sport is recognised as a unifying force in South Africa. And the second theme: “Environmental Sustainability via Technology” – encourages young people from different schools in the country to develop tech-driven solutions that protect natural resources, promote renewable energy and support sustainable living. Beyond the competition, these themes are intended to build skills essential for the country’s 4IR agenda – including critical thinking, design thinking and collaborative problem-solving.

This exciting 2026 STEM-based (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) competition was opened to all public schools, including quintile 5 – and seeks to foster innovation among high school learners from underprivileged backgrounds throughout South Africa. For Samsung, this 2026 iteration demonstrates a major shift – ensuring that the competition is more inclusive and nationally representative and that there’s broader participation from public schools across South Africa.

Lefa Makgato, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager for Samsung South Africa said: “As a company, we are very happy with how this year’s Design Thinking Workshops have run and it was pleasing to see the impact that our Samsung mentors in collaboration with the school educators had on the lives of learners.

“These Design Thinking Workshops are a critical stage of this STEM-based competition. And importantly, these workshops have now managed to move the school learners’ minds beyond theoretical knowledge – giving them the hands-on experience they need for the next, prototype-building stage of the competition. The learners who participated in these workshops will now be able to use STEM principles they have learnt to address real-world community challenges, such as environmental sustainability.”

The designated period of the Samsung SFT Design Thinking Workshops is used to breakdown key elements and core objectives of the competition which include:

• Human-Centred Design – that teaches teams to approach challenges from the end-user’s perspective, prioritising empathy to design functional solutions.
• The Prototype Development Element of the SFT Competition – where learners are guided through moving from a conceptual idea to creating tangible paper or digital prototypes.
• And then there is the Skills Enhancement Part of the Design Thinking Workshops – which encourages and fosters the need for learners to master the art of collaboration, creative brainstorming, critical thinking and effective communication.

Following these Design Thinking Workshops, the learners will now – under the guidance of their teachers and mentors, embark on the next phase of research and prototype development in preparation for the competition’s finale. At the final stage, scheduled for later this year, the teams will present their prototypes to a panel of esteemed judges.

For Samsung, this SFT competition has – since 2023 when it was launched in South Africa – been challenging public school learners to dream, develop and build real-world solutions to enact positive social change. And, at every level of the SFT competition, public school learners have the opportunity to gain invaluable STEM skills – allowing them to give back to their schools and communities while also creating lasting friendships along the way.

Makgato added: “As Samsung, we strongly believe that this SFT initiative and in particular – these Design Thinking Workshops which equip learners with critical STEM-based and interpersonal skills – directly support South Africa’s national educational and transformation goals, particularly in fostering 4IR skills, critical thinking and equitable access to opportunities. 

“And, we are convinced that our partnership with the Department of Basic Education (DBE) in this SFT competition highlights and reaffirms a shared conviction that investing in youth, particularly through technology is crucial for South Africa’s sustainable future economic growth and social transformation,” concluded Makgato.