Financial challenges faced by many South African university students mean that buying expensive specialised textbooks comes at the cost of sacrificing essentials such as food. This is according to University of the Free State student Nkcubeko Noyila.

Noyila has created an award-winning application (app) called ‘Rebooked’ which aims to address the critical need for affordable academic books.

In her first year at university, Noyila’s work on the app led to the offer of a place in a MTN mentorship programme. A year later she was one of the prize winners in the MTN SA Women in Digital Business Challenge, for which she was awarded R100 000 towards business development.

The Rebooked app connects sellers and buyers of second-hand books, offering an alternative to buying new academic books or prescribed textbooks at retail prices. 

“Many of us couldn’t buy the books we needed because textbooks could cost well over R1000, so we had to borrow and share books or spend countless hours at the library to read them. This obviously made studying and passing subjects difficult,” said Noyila.

While Rebooked was previously only active at certain times during the year because it focused solely on university books, the app has now developed to cater for a range of different books, including non-academic books.

“I see Rebooked becoming a place where even aspiring authors can self-publish and market their e-books and traditional paperbacks, or a space for hosting live and virtual seminars for future writers and established authors to talk about their work and inspire others,” says Noyila.

Future plans include a feature that will enable books to be created on the site.

“The changes are so exciting, they’ve led to me having to reassess many of the features, including the payment mechanism. The initial idea was to offer students a chance to connect with other students and advertise venues where they could meet to do transactions for textbooks, but the safety considerations of this approach has meant building a safe online payment mechanisms into the app.

“I will be using my R100 000 prize money to establish the Rebooked brand by travelling to major campuses to market its features and benefits and launch campaigns and projects. The balance will be used to improve the app and incorporate other features that will make it attractive to even more users. Plans for a second app are also on the way,” concludes Noyila. 

The MTN Group notes that the Women in Digital Business Challenge forms part of its commitment to developing information communications technology, or ICT, small- to medium-sized enterprises on the continent. It aims to encourage an entrepreneurial mindset by providing R1-million to 10 small, micro and medium-sized enterprise candidates for working capital needs, business development, tangible assets, mentorship, and advancing technology and software.