26 Apr 2018

Leverage Point, an IT company, has unveiled a P750 000 sponsorship package for Botswana Karate Association (BOKA) for the development of an Information Management System (IMS).

Speaking at a press conference to unveil the package, Botswana National Olympic Committee board member, Yarona Sharp said the system would help monitor athletes’ performance.

“This system is coming in handy as it will be used for record keeping of all information about referees, coaches, administrators, finances and so forth,” she said.

She said in a country that sought to professionalise sport, the move by karate was not only trailblazing but a stepping stone to greater things.

“Imagine a situation where one international organisation wants to hire or engage in one way or another an athlete or coach, this system will have available all the information necessary on that athlete or coach,” she stated.

She said information would be readily and easily accessible unlike a situation where one had to battle to remember on which note pad the information may be contained.

Sharp commended Leverage Point for contributing to the growth of sport in Botswana, saying the gesture would not go unnoticed. She added that she hoped other circumstanced and able institutions would be encouraged to assist in the same fashion other national federations with a similar need as BOKA.

“I cannot wait for a day that I do not have to go on Wikipedia or Google to retrieve information on Botswana athletes, but rather to go on a local database whose content accuracy I can fully trust,” she said.

Leverage Point managing director, Kenneth Setimela said the company understood the social, political and economic significance sport had in a contemporary society.

“In acknowledging the importance of IT as part of having a knowledge-based economy we need to leverage on technology and build knowledge driven systems for the development of our economy, our social responsibility, our political maturity, and most importantly, we need to leverage on technology for the creation of jobs and participating fully on exporting these knowledge assets,” he said.

Setimela said the company’s commitment involved project administration and management of the sponsorship, undertaking analysis and documenting all the business processes of BOKA.

“We will build a robust and state of the art information system that seeks to bring a disciplined and focused approach to the development of athletes’ management, sport administration, club and affiliates management which will assist with the day-to-day running of the sport association,” Setimela said.

He further said once everything was concluded they would develop a software solution and subsequently utilise the software and continue to support the developed software.

BOKA president, Tshepo Bathai said the organisation was excited about the partnership and that it came at the right time.

“Every district and village in Botswana has a karate club and it becomes very difficult to manage information so we want to commend Leverage Point as they will relief us the burden of having to manage our systems,” he said. Ends