In the context of South Africa’s research, development and innovation (RD&I) agenda, Boitumelo Leotlela’s recognition as Best Student at the Foundational Digital Capabilities Research (FDCR) 2025 Conference is a powerful milestone, especially as the nation celebrates Women’s Month. Her achievement as a young black female researcher in a high-impact, tech-driven field not only affirms the critical role of women in shaping the country’s innovation ecosystem but also exemplifies the transformative potential of inclusive RD&I.

In honouring Leotlela, we celebrate more than individual excellence; we spotlight the future of science and innovation that is diverse, community-driven and led by voices too often overlooked.

On 18 July 2025, at the FDCR2025 gala dinner held in Coastlands Umhlanga hotel and Convention Centre, Durban, Leotlela emerged as the recipient of the Best Student Award, marking a significant moment in South Africa’s digital innovation and research landscape. Her work, which interrogates how foundational digital capabilities can be adapted to serve under-resourced communities, is being hailed as a strategic breakthrough in the drive toward inclusive digital development across the African continent.

Leotlela, a master’s candidate in computer science at the North-West University, presented her paper titled “Evaluating Trust Models for the IoT-enabled Peer-to-Peer Energy Market.” Her research is distinguished not only by its rigorous empirical methodology but also by its potential to reshape national and regional digital skills development strategies.

At the intersection of innovation, cybersecurity, emerging technologies and grassroots implementation, Leotlela’s study proposes a scalable model for introducing foundational digital skills in rural and peri-urban areas. Her qualitative research approach compares trust models and security mechanisms in terms of how they influence the performance of the underlying transactive microgrid infrastructure, to inform secure and lightweight trust establishment for securing energy trading in regions often overlooked in high-level tech policy discourse.

Expanding further on her research, Leotlela says, “My research leverages a quantitative approach where I conduct a comparative analysis of implementations in peer-to-peer energy markets in terms of how they foster trust to ensure secure energy trading and reliable participants in the market (using security mechanisms and human based feedback or reputation) and how this influences the performance of the underlying IoT-based Software Transactional Memory.”

The bigger picture is to address the energy trilemma, ensuring energy security, sustainable generation and energy availability. The idea is to equip rural areas and underdeveloped areas to generate and trade energy in their local communities using emerging technologies like the internet of things, blockchain for security and smart transactive microgrids (improved microgrid infrastructure that allows normal consumers to trade energy amongst each other).

This approach is innovative as it shifts away from the traditional top-down approach, where utilities generate and supply energy. Instead, it empowers consumers to be active participants in the energy sector, where they can produce and sell energy in their local communities.

The paper she presented explores how one can allow participants to trade in a secure market with trustworthy counterparts, ensuring they will not cheat each other and will fulfil their trade obligations. Additionally, its primary purpose is to contribute towards a secure, innovative solution that improves energy security, encourages sustainable energy generation and fosters inclusive economic growth in rural or developing communities, as they can buy and sell energy among each other.

“Innovation must begin where exclusion ends,” she told attendees during a plenary session. “If foundational digital capabilities are to be truly universal, they must be context-sensitive, designed with the communities they aim to serve, not for them.”

Her research offers a locally grounded, evidence-based framework that integrates mobile-first learning platforms, low-bandwidth content optimisation and culturally responsive digital pedagogy. It represents a new wave of Developmental Research and Innovation, a model in which scientific progress is measured not only in technical sophistication, but in societal impact.

Dr Hlabi Kobo, session chair at the FDCR2025, described Leotlela’s work as a forward-thinking contribution to the field of foundational digital research.

“Boitumelo’s research has a great potential of decentralising the provision of energy and empower small scale power producers. This research is a perfect example of how emerging technologies can be leveraged to solve real life problems in our society.”

Leotlela’s award reflects a growing emphasis within the South African research ecosystem on inclusive innovation, where scientific development is directly aligned with the country’s socioeconomic objectives. Her work resonates with key goals outlined in the 2022 White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation, particularly the prioritisation of digital inclusion and human capital development.

In a field often characterised by top-down technology transfers, Leotlela’s approach inverts the paradigm by advocating for community-informed R&D. “We need to design digital infrastructures and programs that evolve from the bottom up, based on real use cases and lived experience,” she said.

As a young black woman in the research and innovation space, Leotlela’s achievements are also advancing gender equity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, a core priority of the South African National System of Innovation.

With her award-winning research, Leotlela is not merely contributing to academic knowledge; she is setting a research and innovation agenda that places Africa’s most marginalised populations at the centre of digital transformation.

As the continent moves toward implementing the African Union’s Digital Transformation Strategy 2030, researchers like Leotlela are critical in ensuring that the foundational capabilities underpinning that vision are locally developed, data-driven and equitably applied.

“I see research as a tool to shape secure and sustainable innovation, building a digital Africa that leaves no one behind,” said Boitumelo Leotlela.

Fast facts: Boitumelo Leotlela's research

Title:  Evaluating Trust Models for the IoT-enabled Peer-to-Peer Energy Market

Methodology:  Qualitative methods (comparative analysis)

Focus areas:  Developing and rural areas in South Africa

Key innovations:  Addresses energy security, supports secure and inclusive innovation in the energy space

Institution: North-West University, School of Computer Science and Information Systems

Collaborators:  CSIR’s Advanced Internet Of Things research group