Thando Gumede is an advocate pupil, serving her practical vocational training as part of the first cohort of pupils at the Pius Langa School of Advocacy of the Pan African Bar Association of South Africa. This is the first Pro-Black and Equitable Bar Association and school on the continent.

She obtained her LLB degree at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2016. During her tenure as an undergraduate student, she was recognized by Bain and Co. as a Mbokodo: one of the top all-round performing young women in the entire Gauteng province. In 2015, she became an alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Global Start-up Labs, in which she led her team to win first place for a demo of a digital educational platform called, Sky-Class: which provides children from indigent communities with equal access to the same quality of digital educational content as their counterparts living in privileged communities. Later in the same year, she was recognised by Barclays Africa as one of the top 100 brightest young minds in Africa.

She created and anchored the Bashumi Street Law Show and Bashumi Business Show which aired on Africa Business Radio and garnered 70 000 downloads in a few weeks. The Bashumi Shows used unique methods to teach law and business skills to women across Africa; as well as to bring equality and dignity for women across the continent.

Thando is currently a Masters student at the University of Cape Town, specialising in Human Rights Law and Social Justice, with a focus on women, children and gender non-conforming people’s right to access basic and higher education. She previously served as a Judge’s Research Clerk at the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein; a Legal Researcher for the Democratic Governance and Rights Unit in Cape Town; as well as served as a legal researcher and contributor for the Judicial Service Commission’s Judge’s Appointment Report.

In 2018, she became the recipient of the Hague Institute for Innovation in Law’s (HiiL) Fellowship Award, as well as the Justice Challenge grant from Netherlands. In early 2019 she received the Leaders in Innovation Residential Fellowship award from the United Kingdom’s Royal Academy of Engineering and the South African Technology Innovation Agency. Later in 2019, she received the Letsema Social Innovation and Impact Award. She has won these awards for her innovation called M-TETO Search Engine: which is a mobile technology application focused on addressing the current challenges related to School Related Gender Based Violence (‘SRGBV’) and minimising the consequences, thereof. M-TETO Search Engine is an educational tool for children in all matters related to SRGBV whilst also improving access to resources and institutions and increasing the accountability of those same institutions.

There is so much more to the work that Thando has done in the past, is currently doing and is STILL to do. Tune in to hear about Thando’s exciting journey in the legal profession and why she is a true advocate for human’s rights and humanity.

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