Samsung Solve for Tomorrow finalists win their spots to the next stage

Samsung has delivered yet more successfulSolve for Tomorrow (SFT)Design Thinking Workshops for 2026, with a group of brilliant learners from various public schools across South Africa. The May 8 to June 15 workshops were held at central venues in the provinces where the 2026 Top 20 finalist schools are based. North West led the pack with four finalist schools, followed by Limpopo and the Free State with three each.

Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape and Mpumalanga each had two finalist schools, while the Eastern Cape and Northern Cape each had one. TheSamsung SFTDesign Thinking Workshops are highly collaborative and human-centric problem-solving sessions. They are structured around a hands-on community-focused problem-solving approach that seeks to teach participating grade 10 and 11 learners to empathise, define, ideate, prototype and test.

The first isSocial Change through Sports and Technology, which ensures the power of sport is recognised as a unifying force in South Africa. Beyond the competition, these themes are intended to build skills essential for the country’s Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) agenda — including critical thinking, design thinking and collaborative problem-solving. This exciting 2026 Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)-based competition is open to all public schools, including quintile 5.

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It seeks to foster innovation among high school learners from underprivileged backgrounds. For Samsung, this year’s 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 the country. Lefa Makgato, corporate social responsibility manager for Samsung SA, says Samsung is pleased with how this year’s workshops have run, and with the impact that Samsung mentors in collaboration with educators had on the lives of learners. These workshops have now managed to move the school learners’ minds beyond theoretical knowledge

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