A young C-Tech drone pilot in a C-Tech cap and vest checks his drone controller from the seat of a vehicle in Johannesburg South.

Nov 3, 2026

One drone and a township classroom: the C-Tech story

C-Tech didn't start in a tech park or a university lab. It started in a township classroom in La Rochelle, with young people who wanted to use what they had learnt to make their community safer.

Where C-Tech comes from

The Eita STEAM classroom at Corinthians Africa was renovated with support from BASF. After school, children and young people from La Rochelle, Rosettenville and the surrounding areas come here to learn science, technology, engineering, arts and maths.

Some of them asked a simple question: what if we used these skills for the community, right now? C-Tech is the answer. It is Corinthians Africa's youth drone and technology programme, and it puts drones, 3D mapping and data to work for community safety.

Eyes in the sky for community safety

From the air, a drone can show what is hard to see from the street. C-Tech's young pilots fly over Johannesburg South to give a clear, live picture of what is happening on the ground.

In Glenesk, where many children have gone missing, C-Tech uses drone-based 3D terrain mapping to help community searches. Instead of walking blind through dense, difficult ground, searchers get a map and a plan for covering it.

And here is the part that surprises people: all of this has been done with a single drone.

A free community safety app

C-Tech now runs a free community safety app at ctech.corinthians.africa. It's in testing. It works on low-cost phones, in six languages, uses very little data and needs no app store.

People can set up their own Safety Circle, send an SOS that still works by SMS, report incidents and get private help with gender-based violence.

The real goal: work for young people

C-Tech is about more than one team or one drone. Its core goal is to create opportunities and paid work for young people from townships in drone operations, mapping, 3D digital twinning, spatial data analysis and hardware maintenance.

"Drone pilots and data analysts are the jobs of the future, and they should not only belong to the suburbs," said Mlungisi "Coach Jack" Msibi, founder and CEO of Corinthians Africa.

What C-Tech needs to grow

With one drone, C-Tech has shown what is possible. To do more, it needs:

  • thermal and multispectral drones for searches at night

  • a mobile command vehicle

  • laptops that can handle 3D modelling

  • drone training partners

  • GIS and mapping partners

Get involved

Corinthians Africa NPC is a registered non-profit (NPO 264-289 NPO) and an approved Public Benefit Organisation (PBO 930073111) with Section 18A status, so donations for approved activities, such as training unemployed young people for work, qualify for a Section 18A tax receipt.

Media enquiries about C-Tech: Buhle Maliwa, buhle@corinthians.africa.

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