Herd Cows in digital version of local game Morabaraba

A cow herding board game played in rural South Africa, Morabaraba, is becoming digitized, developed by an ex-Stellenbosch University student and licensed to InnoVartis Technology Systems, whose goal is to develop digitized traditional African games.

Morabaraba asks each of its two players to arrange their 12 pieces (or ‘cows’) on a board to form groups of three, known as ‘mills’. Once a player has formed a mill, they are able to take an opponents cows. The digitized version, to be called MRBRB, will be avaiable on iOS, Android and Blackberry 10 platforms, as well as the web.

Ex ‘Matie’ student Tsitso Tlali, who grew up playing Morabaraba on the hills of Lesotho, developed the game during his Applied Mathematics degree at Stellenbosch University under the guidance of InnovUS, the university’s technology transfer office.

“We immediately saw the potential in Tsitso’s idea and offered to help ‘incubate’ his idea by providing office space, legal and business mentoring, as well as funding,” says InnovUS business developer, Saberi Marais.

After a short incubation period, MRBRB was successfully licensed to InnoVartis, a technology company founded by techtrepreneur Yongama Skweyiya, a former InnovUS staff member.

“InnovUS was responsible for managing the licensing process and handling negotiations with InnoVartis on behalf of Tsitso and the University,” says Saberi. “The process was aided by the parties’ common goal and understanding regarding the outstanding development of the technology and commercial outcomes that we wanted to achieve.”

MRBRB now falls under uBi Gaming, InnoVartis’ gaming division dedicated to the development of digital forms of traditional African games. As part of the licensing agreement, Tlali was offered a permanent position at uBi Gaming, where he now leads the development of all the games within this portfolio.

MRBRB is currently at the public testing phase for the web app, and has had over 500 plays. The mobile version is expected by the year’s end. Tlali stated that InnoVartis has been marketing the game to overseas publishers such as Zynga.