Innovative, expandable: Smart School Shoes

After extensive research and development with South African shoemakers and technology experts, Smart School Shoes was born – featuring a patented expandable design and integrated smart tracking technology.

It was created by Charnè Verster, Kelly O’Sullivan and Cindy McKenzie, who graduated with postgraduate diplomas in management entrepreneurship during the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) recent graduation ceremonies.

Smart School Shoes has a simple but powerful vision: to create school shoes that grow with children, while keeping them safe. Parents are faced with two recurring challenges: the cost of replacing outgrown school shoes and concerns about children’s safety during school hours. The innovation came as part of the trio’s work with The Genesis Project at UCT, which addresses the lack of real-world entrepreneurship experience for students by offering a year-long postgraduate diploma in management in entrepreneurship, which allows them to set up and run real, registered businesses, while receiving necessary mentoring and coaching.

The shoe is expandable three sizes, has a built-in smart tag for location tracking – truly one of a kind. Out of 644 successful applications from 26 universities across South Africa, their work won R50 000 at the EDHE-Absa Innovation Challenge finals last year. “It’s amazing, and we are proud of ourselves as an all-female team and how well we have done in competitions we have entered. It’s an exciting period for us,” Charnè said.

“We believed in the idea, and we wanted it to help many people.”

“We are deeply grateful for the guidance of Stuart Hendry, whose mentorship and leadership through The Genesis Project helped shape our approach to business development and innovation. We also want to acknowledge Nadia Waggie (of UCT’s Careers Service), whose support and coordination of UCT’s student entrepreneurship initiatives provided invaluable opportunities and encouragement throughout the competition,” she added.

“Innovation and entrepreneurship are important in South Africa, and I see that public universities are trying to push entrepreneurship more and I think UCT is at the forefront. For us, we enjoyed the idea of making a difference and creating something new.”

This was Charnè’s brainchild, and together with the team, they continued to innovate – putting their best foot forward at every step. Studies vary; however, according to a 2023 South African Journal of Science article, “[In South Africa], the majority of children, approximately 98%, wore shoes that were too narrow for their feet, while 59% wore shoes that were not the appropriate length. These findings corroborate earlier research that found that 67% of children wore ill-fitting school shoes; that is, shoes that were not the correct width and length.”

Believing in the idea

Kelly recalled how Hendry – who was their course convenor – would say: “Get out of the building” to encourage the groups to find real-life problems they can solve. “We did get out of the building and tried to put ourselves in different situations and we went to different environments to try and generate ideas.”

She added: “There was a lot of learning we had to do because we didn’t have the slightest clue about shoes, so one of the most pleasing moments for us was when we saw the shoe in the flesh. Often, when we were looking for assistance [to get the project going], there were some instances of negative attitudes towards us, and I felt that the people who said ‘no’ felt that we were trying to do too much. That was one of the driving factors to produce these shoes. We believed in the idea, and we wanted it to help many people.

“With my teammates, we went from complete strangers to spending all day, every day with one another. It was lovely working with like-minded and positive people like them.”

Kelly added that the long-term vision is to have the shoe in as many retail stores as possible. “In the main, it is to help as many people as possible and ease the financial strain that can come with buying school shoes. Think about a single mother of multiple children, for example, who replaces shoes regularly.”

The team also views their contribution in line with some of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including quality education (shoes help children attend school comfortably, while the business model enables parents to afford better education for their children), as well as responsible consumption and production (expandable shoes design reduces waste by extending product lifecycle, resulting in fewer shoes discarded.) They also use sustainable materials and environmentally friendly manufacturing processes.

Cindy described herself as deeply driven and passionate about the work she takes on. “I naturally gravitate toward opportunities that allow me to create and innovate. What stands out most to me is how our team combined our individual strengths. With the consistent support of my teammates, I was able to translate my design thinking into a functional product.”

She added: “Seeing our prototypes materialise and gaining both national and international recognition at entrepreneurial competitions was incredibly validating. Ultimately, the two most pleasing aspects were the strength of our team dynamic and the tangible success of turning our vision into a real, impactful product. One of the most interesting aspects of our journey is how we developed the shoe from the ground up, starting with very basic materials like cardboard, glue, and early 3D-printed components.”

Reflections

She reflected: “Graduation is an exciting milestone, but for us it represents much more than academic achievement. While we are proud of our degrees, what makes this moment truly meaningful is that we have built a start-up with the potential to create real impact.”

Kelly added: “We are grateful to the UCT Genesis Project for guiding us. There are so many people out there who have ideas of starting a business, but they don’t know how, so UCT has been great in guiding us to this wonderful accomplishment.”

Charné concluded: “Overall, I am proud to be a graduate of UCT and grateful for the opportunities that they have given me.”

Charnè was unable to attend her graduation. Regrettably, she is not photographed at graduation.