Kagiso Malebe
Data Science
Built the matching and rating logic behind the scenes — how a gig finds the right freelancer, and how a two-way rating stays honest when both sides can see it.
Data Scientist
HackDisrupt 2025 · Johannesburg
The team behind FairGig
FairGig started as a hackathon build by six Richfield students and placed second out of every team entered at HackDisrupt 2025. Everyone below shaped what the platform is.
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2nd
Place at HackDisrupt 2025
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6
Student contributors
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48h
From brief to working demo
Kamogelo Mailula
Business Analysis & Product
Shaped the problem statement and the user stories the build was scoped against, and ran the pitch that carried the team to second place.
Aspiring IT Business Analyst · Student at Richfield · Hackathon award winner · Founder, Richfield Software Development Club
Mohatli Mpho Minky
Web Development & Data
Built frontend surfaces and brought the data-analysis perspective that shaped how gig and rating metrics are modelled.
BSc IT Student · Web Developer · Portfolio websites · Python · SQL · Power BI · Advanced Excel · Aspiring Data Analyst
Nkurisani (Austin) Mabasa
Backend Lead
Rebuild maintainerLed the backend: database design, authentication and server logic. Owns the data model and the escrow flow this rebuild is structured around.
Junior Full-Stack Developer · React · Node.js · PHP · MySQL · Google AI Essentials certified · Open to graduate roles and internships
Shaima Mohammed
IT & Quality
Tested flows against the brief and caught the edge cases that separate a demo which survives judging from one that does not.
IT Student at Richfield
Shonai Dillon
Design & Frontend
Worked on the interface and the visual identity — the green-and-orange system this rebuild still runs on.
Student at Richfield
Why we built it
The brief at HackDisrupt 2025 was to build something that addressed a real South African problem. We picked the one most of us had already lived: doing freelance work and then spending weeks chasing payment for it.
The usual advice is to ask for a deposit. That protects nobody — the client is exposed on the front half and the freelancer on the back half. Escrow solves both sides at once, which is why SmartPay ended up at the centre of the product rather than being a feature bolted onto a job board.
The judges gave us second place out of every team entered. What you are looking at now is that build reworked as a proper static site: real separate pages, hand-written CSS, and prices in rand because our users are paid in rand.