23-Year-Old SA Developer Builds Free App To Help Learners Pass Maths
- Lesedi Mochadibane launched freenotes.co.za to give South African learners free, visually engaging maths study materials
- The platform grew from a local idea to reach students in over 100 countries, including the United States and Australia
- Mochadibane credits a high school teacher with sparking his passion for maths and driving him to make it fun for others
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A 23-year-old South African entrepreneur built a free online maths platform that has quietly found its way into classrooms across the globe. Lesedi Mochadibane launched freenotes.co.za to address a problem he saw up close: too many learners were walking into exams underprepared, not because they lacked ability, but because the resources available to them were expensive, dull, or hard to understand.
South Africa's maths performance tells a difficult story. Fewer than 30% of matric students choose core mathematics, and only about half of those who do manage to pass their final exams.
A teacher who changed everything
Mochadibane traces his passion back to a single high school teacher. "My amazing maths teacher taught us to love math and focus on practice," he said during a recent studio interview. "Once I got that, I was able to go even beyond what I used to get."
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That experience shaped the entire philosophy behind freenotes.co.za. The platform offers colourful, visually designed notes built around step-by-step diagrams rather than walls of text. Content is written in simplified English so learners from different language backgrounds can follow along. The notes are free, with no subscription fees or paywalls.
The idea is simple: if learners are not spending time copying notes by hand, they can spend more time practising actual problems.
From South Africa to 100 countries
Mochadibane started building the platform around the end of 2023 and into early 2024. He set his sights on South African students, covering maths and Mathematical Literacy from Grade 7 through to matric. But what happened next surprised even him.
"I focused on trying to reach South African students, then they reached over 20,000 students," he said. "But on top of that, it reached students in over 100 countries. America had second, Australia third, and then Kenya had fourth. I was like, wow."
That international reach pushed him to expand. The platform now includes university-level resources covering areas such as Criminal Law, Family Law, and Constitutional Law.
Awards and recognition
Mochadibane's work in education technology spans nearly five years and has earned him several notable accolades. He won an R100,000 grant as a finalist at the Allan Grey Varsity Pitch for his Campus Connect project and took first place at the Allan Grey Orbis Foundation DigiJam, earning R20,000 for his Taxi Maths Game. One of his educational apps reached the number one trending spot on the Google Play Store. He was also selected as one of only two South African nominees for Digilab Africa.
Learners can access the platform by visiting freenotes.co.za.
Source: Instagram
More on education
- Briefly News recently reported on a Limpopo teacher who took a struggling school from chronic underperformance to a 100% pass rate in Physical Science.
- Chicago also opened its first AI-driven school with no traditional teachers, and experts have raised concerns.
- The matric class of 2026 is also days away from writing their final exams, and there's plenty they need to know.
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Source: Briefly News
