News Update as @ 1530 hours, Thursday 12 June 2014Feedback: bh24admin@zimpapers.co.zwEmail: bh24feedback@zimpapers.co.zw

By Tawanda Musarurwa

• Kariba South Expansion pro-ject to effectively begin following board appointment

The Kariba South Expansion project is set to start moving following the appointment of a new board for the new Zesa entity, the Kariba Hydro

Power Company. The Kariba Hydro Power Company was set up to oversee the construction of two new generating units at Kariba Power Station of 150 Megawatts each.

But progress on the extension project had stalled due to the lack of a board, in view of several pre-conditions rang-

ing from monetary to technical issues are yet to be settled. Today the Minis-ter of Energy and Power Development Dzikamai Mavhaire appointed the inau-gural board of the Kariba Hydro Power Company, along with the boards of Zesa's other nine entities.

The Kariba Hydro Power Company will be chaired by Engineer James Chiuta Dube and Dr Cleopatra Matanhire-Mtisi is the vice chairperson.

The company's managing director is Engineer Noah Gwariro, who is also the MD of the Zimbabwe Power Company.

Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Power Development Partson Mbiriri indicated that this par-ticular board will have do with some "hand-holding" because of the expe-diency with which some key areas of

the project needed to be implemented. The $355 million project is to build two generators that will boost Kariba South’s capacity from 750 megawatts to 1 050MW.

China Export and Import Bank is to provide US$320 million (90 percent of project cost) and Government, through ZPC, will supplement the balance.

Meanwhile, new board members for Zesa Holdings comprises of Dr Her-bert Murerwa as chairman, Engineer Benjamin Rafemoyo as vice chairman and Engineer Joshua Chifamba as chief executive officer.

Other members in the Zesa Holdings board are Evelyn Kawonza, Simplisius Chihambakwe, Dr Christine Masuta, Farai Mavhiya, Godknows Mhonde and Nyasha Mandeya. •

Kariba Hydro Power Company gets inaugural board

By Rumbidzayi Zinyuke

Government will not relax its policy on the production of genetically modified commodities in the country but will work on imposing stiffer measures on the import of horticultural and poultry products.

Speaking at the launch of the US$2,4 billion agricultural revolving fund by the Zanu-PF Youth League and Lasch Enterpises Joint venture, Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Develop-ment Minister Joseph Made said farm-ers should focus on producing these products.

“We should start the programme by producing those commodities that are GMO free and I can assure you that we will not allow our country to be contam-inated with these commodities because our population is very small relative to the land base that we have,” he said.

He said farmers should take advantage of the recent ban on GMO products derived from soya bean and cereal crops in countries such as Russia, China and Mexico.

Minister Made said stringent measures on imports could, however, only be

sustained by consistent supply of the banned commodities.

“I am willing to put the stringent meas-ures on condition that you promise and undertake to make sure that you are consistent in production. I don’t

think it would be a problem to get the supermarkets to support you if you are consistent and supply right through the year,” he added.

Speaking at the same event, direc-tor general of the joint venture Evans

Zininga said more than 800 000 tar-geted farmers will benefit at least $3000 worth of inputs each.

“Instead of giving them cash loans, farmers will receive inputs and they will have access to a ready market for their produce courtesy of Agricultural Mar-keting Authority,” he said.

He said by the end of the first year, the programme should have more than 1 million farmers benefitting from it.

“And to avoid the culture of people who do not pay back loans, we will do a thor-ough investigation to verify the credibil-ity of the recipients and the loans will be insured by First Mutual Life so that in the event a beneficiary dies before paying back a loan, the company gets its money back,” he added. •

NEWS2

Government will not accept GMO products: Made

3 NEWS

By Lynn Murahwa

Education platform eLearning Solutions is launching a new mobile platform called mLearning (mobile learning) next week designed specifically to inte-grate their digital content for mobile devices.

Elearning Solutions has scheduled the launch for Tuesday morning at Meikles Hotel to showcase their new product.

The platform mLearning offers stu-dents and teachers a mobile space to access learning material and an inter-active virtual learning system. The platform has been made available for Windows, Android and Apple Operating Systems.

The mLearning system is a payment based platform and eLearning Solu-tions has partnered with the country’s mobile money platforms Ecocash, Tel-ecash and One Wallet to allow users to purchase learning material.

e-learning Solutions does not allow for users to purchase ownership learning material but rather purchase the ability to access the information for a period of time. The prices of the material vary depending with the duration of the

license. According to eLearning Solu-tions mLearning, has been traditionally defined as "learning across multiple contexts, through social and content interactions, using personal electronic devices. This, however, is a device based definition, which ties mLearning to technology.

e-learning Solutions defines mLearning with respect to the mobility of learners, and the learning experience focusing on academic and content aspects of the mobile learning environment. M-learn-ing offers three features within its sys-tem mCourser, mLibro and mAuthor. MCourser is a mobile-oriented web based eLearning platform accessed

from any device that helps teachers and students to work and interact dur-ing the learning process.

MLibro is an offline extension to any eLearning Platform enabling users to work with interactivecontent on any of their devices in an offline environment.

MAuthor addresses the growing demand for digital mobile educational content. It is a powerful yet easy to use ePublishing solution designed to help publishers and developers create a wide variety of interactive digital con-tent and immediately publish it for mul-tiple platforms and uses. •

e-Solutions Learning launches mobile learning platform

The Minister for Energy and Power Development Dzikamai Mavhaire appointed board members for the var-ious State Enterprises and Parastatals boards today.

ZESA

The newly appointed board for Zesa Holdings comprises of Dr Herbert Mur-erwa as Chairman, Engineer Benjamin Rafemoyo as Vice Chairman and Engi-neer Joshua Chifamba as Chief Execu-tive Officer. Other members in the Zesa Holdings board are Evelyn Kawonza, Simplisiuis Chihambakwe, Dr Chris-tine Masuta, Farai Mavhiya, Godknows Mhonde and Nyasha Mandeya.

ZPC

The appointed Chairman for Zimba-bwe Power Company (ZPC) is Stanley Kazhanje while Vice Chairperson is Patrick Zhuwawo and Noah Gwariro is the Managing Director. The rest of the ZPC board is comprised of Clarissa MUchengeti, Mr R S Borerwe, Takawira Zengeya, Engineer Alban Nyakurima, Thandiwe MLobane and Gertrude Chik-wava.

ZETDC

The Zimbabwe Electricity Distribution and Transmission Company (ZETDC) appointed Chairman is Dr John Mvun-dura while Nicholas Ncube is appointed Vice Chairman and Engineer Julian Chinembiri is the Managing Direc-tor. The rest of the board comprises of Zenzo Nsimbi, Cletus Nyachowe, Rebecca Chidziva, Elasto Madzingira and Getrude Mutasa.

ZENT

The Zesa Enterprises (ZENT (PVT) board is comprised of Engineer Ernest Muchayi as Chairman, Judy Nyamu-

chanja as Vice Chairperson and Tererai Mutasa as the Managing Director. The rest of the board is made up of Briga-dier General Mashingaidze, Mrs Dhlem-beu, Elias Musakwa and Roselune Chitsveto.

Powertel

The Powertel (Private) Limited Board comprises if Tsitsi Makova as Chairper-son, Archibald Ndoro as Vice Chairman and Samuel Maminimini as the Man-aging Director. The other members are Gertrude Takawira, Fred Kanzama, Gerald Mlotshwa and Chaplin Chin-yanga.

NOIC

The National Oil Infrastructire Company of Zimbabwe (NOIC) board Chairman is Shingai Mutumbwa, Nancy Masay-iwa as Vice Chairperson and Wilfred Matukeni as Mannaging Director. The rest of the board is made up of Dr Bara, Mrs MAyowe, Brian Kaukonde, Jacob Chademana and Musekiwa Kamab.

Petrol Trade

Petrol Trade has been appointed Wal-

ter Mutsauri as board Chairman, Zvi-nechimwe Churu as Vice Chairman and Tanaka SIkwila as the Acting Chief Executive Officer. The rest of the board has been appointed Shadreck Chipanga, Tinayo Kangai, Petronella Musarurwa, Raphael Tirivanhu, Ber-nard Hove and Busisiwe Dube.

REA

The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) board Chairman is Willard Chiwewe while the Chief Executive Officer is Joshua Mashamba. The rest of the board comprises of Christinah MOyo, FUngai Samuel Mbetsa, Christopher Shumba, Josphat T Jaji, Felix Chik-wowo, Midard Khumalo and Cecelia Chitiyo.

ZERA

The board appointed for the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA) is Dr Esther Khosa as Chairpaerson, Engineer Gloria Magombo as the Chief Executive Officer, AirVice Mar-shall Henry Muchena, Engineer Betty Nhachi, Tedios Muzoroza, Todd Garfield Nkiwane and Dr Irene Jeke •

4 ENERGY

Ministry of Energy and Power Development State Enterprises Boards in FULL

Minister Mavhaire

BH24 Reporter

Edgars Stores is eyeing exporting its recently launched men’s casual cloth-ing label, Quote, to South Africa follow-ing its acceptance on the local market.

The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange listed firm in February this year launched Quote, a men’s clothing brand as part of initiatives to drive its sales volumes.

Edgars Stores sales and marketing executive Peter Munyama told New Ziana the planned move followed suc-cess of the label in Zimbabwe. “We are trying to get the fabric in Tanzania so that we can be able to sell cloth-ing in the huge South African mar-ket,” he said. Although their products

can compete with any other in the region, Edgars Zimbabwe cannot pen-etrate the huge South African market because of a bilateral trade agreement between Zimbabwe and its southern neighbour.

Zimbabwe has preferential access on clothing to most parts of the world on a single transformation basis. This means that manufacturing of the gar-ment must occur in Zimbabwe, but the fabric can originate from anywhere. But there are restrictive Rules of Origin in the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) region which main-tain a double transformation rule on clothing. This means in order to par-ticipate in preferential access, clothing must not only be manufactured within

Zimbabwe, but it must also be manu-factured from fabric which was manu-factured within SADC, to enjoy duty-free access to regional markets, or pricing for Zimbabwean products will remain uncompetitive.

SADC governments have been seeking to relax this rule through request for waivers. Munyama said the number of retail partners selling the Quote brand locally had doubled since its launch. Services of five retailers among them, Topics, Barons and Raffles were enlisted to push the label into the mar-ket at its launch. “From the five retail partners we started with, we have now doubled to ten. These include Ceembe, Five Kings, to mention but a few.”

“A couple of indigenous partners have also come on board to retail the Quote clothing line,” he said. Munyama said Edgars was currently selling summer wear of the Quote men’s designer clothes and demand was already high.

“We launched the brand in February and then we were selling winter wear until this June. The summer range sales have already out competed the winter clothing by 44 percent,” he said. — New Ziana •

5 NEWS

Edgars eyeing SA market for quote label

BH24

By Tawanda Musarurwa

The Ministry of Industry and Commerce has set up private sector advisory com-mittees on Ease of Doing Business and Imports, respectively.

According to the Industry and Com-merce Minister Mike Bimha, the advi-sory committees will play a key role in presenting the challenges industry is facing in respect of the two areas to Government.

Minister Bimha said the advisory com-mittees are ad hoc, and advise his min-istry and not Cabinet.

"Their role is to make analysis, inves-tigations and to come up with recom-mendations contained in a report that Government will then consider," said Minister Bimha.

"It is in the interest of Government to engage the private sector, and the private sector can also benefit from knowing where Government is coming from."

The two commitees where announced this afternoon by the minister. The advisory committee on Ease of Doing Business will be chaired by Moreen

Chitewe. It will also include Brian Kagondo, Adam Molayi, Clifford Simbeya and Osbourne Majuru.

The advisory committee on Imports will be chaired by Mike Nyabadza and

its members include Tracey Mutiviri, James Maphosa, Eve Gadzikwa and Busiso Moyo.

The issues of a difficult and costly oper-ating environment and the effect of

cheap imports are very topical in local industry.

Minister Bimha said the committees have an initial deadline of the end of July to make their first report back. •

7 NEWS

Ministry of Industry and Commerce sets up private sector advisory committees

The local bourse continues on a posi-tive trend moving up 0.79 percent on yesterday.

The Industrial Index gained 1.41 points to close at 180.43 points.

Heavyweight Delta added 2 cents to 117 cents, while TSL was up a cent to 30 cents.

Telecoms giant Econet advanced 0.41 cents to 71.41 cents and cement man-ufacturer PPC gained 0.20 cents to set-tle at 216 cents.

Turnall was up 0.15 cents to close at 2.25 cents.

On the downside, Colcom slipped a cent to 21 cents, while Willdale slipped 0.02 cents to trade at 0.08 cents and ZPI eased 0.01 cents to 0.80 cents.

Turnover today jumped to $7.7 million on the back of a special bargain in CBZ worth $5.1 million.

The mining index advanced 1.15 points (or 2.67 percent) to close at 44.27 points on the back of gains by Riozim which was up a cent to 20 cents,

Falgold also gained, adding 0.50 cents to trade at 2 cents as Bindura added 0.04 cents to close at 3.20 cents. Hwange maintained previous trading levels.

— BH24 Reporter •

8 ZSE REVIEW

Equities maintains bullish trend

Over the past few years, the term infra-structure sharing has been brandied about especially in the telecommunica-tions industry.

Zimbabwe has one of the most dynamic industries which have been growing at a phenomenal pace. Not only is the pene-tration rate for voice calls at 103 percent, internet penetration is now at 40 percent making Zimbabwe one of the most pen-etrated markets on the continent.

This means the three major players in the industry, Econet, NetOne and Telecel have been hard at work to make sure they service every part of the nation. Base station after base station has been erected while trenches that are millions of kilometres long have been dug for the fibre optic cables.

While this is a good thing, the infra-structure has not been shared. Each company is doing their own thing. And they have been constantly blaming each other for the failure to integrate their infrastructure. Econet says the others want a parasitic relationship where they ride on the back of technologies already created by them while others say Econet snubs them because they think they are capable of doing it alone. Who then is to

blame? Should Government come in to referee such a match? Econet has done a lot over the past decade, we have to give them that. They have introduced a lot of firsts in the industry. NetOne and Telecel on the other hand have been doing a lot of following. NetOne has over the years built an impressive base station base. They have coverage in almost every part of the country and Telecel is also follow-ing suit.

But why then are they failing to come together and combine forces to create a stronger telecoms industry? We cannot deny that Econet has worked hard to be where they are in terms of infrastruc-ture as well as innovations. They have brought so many firsts in the country that we cannot blame them for feeling a bit overprotective of such an achieve-ment. Econet yesterday launched an

international service that will make send-ing money from the diaspora a whole lot easier and cheaper. this is exactly what the country needs , but they were quick to say they would not share it with oth-ers.

“We went and we negotiated with World Remit on behalf of Econet not anyone else. It is up to the others to go and engage them as well, we have no prob-lem. They should be aggressive enough if they want to survive in this industry. But it is ok if they copy from us,” Cuth-bert Tembedza, Ecocash chief executive said. Here is what we think: First, Econet should also shoulder their share of the blame. They cannot act as if they are all innocent in this. They have over the past been a bit bullish and they also do not want to share their infrastructure. They have told themselves that we have the

capacity and so we can go it alone’. but that should not be the case. They should not be selfish!

Second, our regulator has failed to bring these companies to work together and as such new measures should be intro-duced. Potraz should introduce penalties for companies that keep digging up to install their cables without first working out a sharing option with others. We cannot have them defiling our beautiful country for their selfish reasons so they should feel the pinch for doing it alone. lastly, Econet is very right in that players should be aggressive in telecommunica-tion. Netone and Telecel cannot ride on the back of Econet’s success.

They should go out and create their own ‘firsts’ and stop moaning when others do it. •

9 BH24 COMMENT

Telecoms infrastructure sharing a necessity

enjoy the CAIO ride!

BH24

The world’s three largest platinum companies and the biggest union at their South African mines agreed on proposals that the labour organisation will take to its members in a bid to end a 20-week pay strike.

“‘In-principle’ undertakings have been reached with the leadership of the Association of Mineworkers and Con-struction Union in respect of wages and conditions of employment,” Impala Platinum Holdings, Anglo American Platinum Ltd, and Lonmin said in a joint statements. Platinum and palladium prices dropped on the news.

The companies expect to get a response from the union tomorrow. The AMCU is meeting members at mines today to get their views on the proposal. Workers at Impala, where AMCU leader Joseph Mathunjwa held his first rally, agreed on the proposals in principle, he said at the gathering.

More than 70,000 members of the union have been on a strike over pay since Jan. 23. Producers say workers have missed out on 9.9 billion rand ($926 million) in wages and that they have lost 22.1 billion rand in revenue.

The country’s mines minister said June 9 he was withdrawing from efforts to resolve the walkout, which has dis-rupted production in the country that accounts for about 70 percent of global mined platinum production.

“It was getting to the point where there was very limited visibility after the min-ister left the process so this is coming as a surprise,” Tyler Broda, a Lon-don-based mining analyst at Nomura International Plc, said by phone. “That’s what the equities and the metal prices

are showing at the moment.”

Impala shares rose 1.7 percent to 114.99 rand by 2:28 p.m. in Johan-nesburg. Anglo American Platinum declined 0.5 percent to 476 rand, while Lonmin surged 7 percent 253.3 pence in London.

Platinum for immediate delivery fell 3 percent to $1,437.38 an ounce and palladium sank 4.1 percent to $825.60 an ounce.

“This is not an offer,” Impala spokes-man Johan Theron said by phone. “The only agreement we have is that the union will go back to members and refresh its mandate.” The companies and the AMCU will hold further talks should union member respond posi-tively, Theron said. — Bloomberg •

11 REGIONAL NEWS

Platinum Union agrees on pay plan to end South Africa strike

12 DIARY OF EVENTS

The black arrow indicate level of load shedding across the country.

POWER GENERATION STATSGen Station

12 June 2014

Energy

(Megawatts)

Hwange 442 MW

Kariba 750 MW

Harare 44 MW

Munyati 32 MW

Bulawayo 22 MW

Imports 24 MW

Total 1314 MW

13 June 2014 - Securities and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe 2nd Shareholders Forum & Responsible Investing in Zimbabwe Conference 2014 Place : Cresta Lodge, Harare, Time : 8am -2pm

26 June - Masimba Holdings Limited Thirty-Ninth Annual General Meeting of Members for the period ended 31 December 2013, Place: 44 Tilbury Road, Willowvale, Harare, Zimbabwe, Time: 12:00

THE BH24 DIARY

BH24

14 ZSE

ZSEMOvERS CHANGE TODAY PRICE USC SHAKERS CHANGE TODAY PRICE USC

FALGOLD 33.33% 2.00 WILLDALE -20.00% 0.08

RTG 10.00% 1.10 COLCOM -4.55% 21.00TURNALL 7.14% 2.25 ZPI -1.23% 0.80RIOZIM 5.26% 20.00

TSL 3.45% 30.00

BARCLAYS 2.86% 3.60

DELTA 1.74% 117.00

BNC 1.27% 3.20

Indices

INDEx PREvIOUS TODAY MOvE CHANGE

INDUSTRIAL 179.02 180.43 +1.41 POINTS +0.79%

MINING 43.12 44.27 +1.15 POINTS +2.67%

Stocks Exchange

15 AFRICA STOCkS

Botswana 8,664.65 -11.96 -0.14% 12July

Cote dIvoire 246.37 +2.18 +0.89% 07Mar

Egypt 7,949.60 -75.68 -0.94% 06Mar

Ghana 2,343.98 +9.46 +0.41% 06June

Kenya 4,881.56 +12.30 +0.25% 06June

Malawi 12,662.47 +0.00 +0.00% 07Mar

Mauritius 2,074.51 -3.51 -0.17% 07Mar

Morocco 9,544.10 +21.01 +0.22% 07Mar

Nigeria 41,529.11 -40.98 -0.10% 06June

Rwanda 131.27 +0.00 +0.00% 24Oct

Tanzania 2,018.97 +25.40 +1.27% 07Mar

Tunisia 4,624.39 -39.32 -0.84% 07Mar

Uganda 1,503.90 +0.81 +0.05% 10Sep

Zambia 4,242.74 +14.95 +0.35% 10April

Zimbabwe 178.58 +1.54 +0.87% 06June

African stock round up Commodity Prices

Name Price

Crude Oil 1,300.91 -0.21%

Spot Gold USD/oz 1,292.63 -0.26%

Spot Silver USD/oz 19.38 -0.46%

Spot Platinum USD/oz 1,421.25 -0.33%

Spot Palladium USD/oz 798.50 -0.64%

LME Copper USD/t 6,770 -0.18%

LME Aluminium USD/t 1,780 -1.17%

LME Nickel USD/t 18,230 -1.73%

LME Lead USD/t 2,095 -1.41%

Quote of the day —"The hisTory of The world is The hisTo-ry of a few people who had faiTh in Themselves." - swa-mi vivekananda

Globalshareholder.com

Oil prices hit a three-month peak on Thursday on worries escalating vio-lence in Iraq may disrupt supply while European shares stabilised near 6-1/2-year highs with gains capped by global growth concerns.

Investors have become increasingly anxious after militants from an al-Qa-eda splinter group captured Mosul, the OPEC producer's second largest city, and appeared to be making rapid advances towards the Shi'ite-led gov-ernment in Baghdad.

Brent futures - an international oil

benchmark sensitive to geopolitical turmoil - jumped more than $2 to $112.29 a barrel, the highest since early March.

"I would entirely ascribe this move to the insurrection in the north of Iraq ... The fear is that it will cause a threat to Iraqi oil exports," Christopher Bellew, a trader at Jefferies Bache, said.

"If this conflict knocked out Iraq as an exporter, that would have significant impact on prices ... How high could they go? It depends on what happens."

Events in Iraq and renewed concerns about the pace of global growth made investors tread cautiously in riskier assets.

European, U.S. and Asian shares retreated from multi-year and record peaks reached this week after the World Bank cut its global growth fore-cast.

The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was slightly up on the day at 1,393.75 points, hovering just below the 1,398.65 peak hit earlier on Wednesday. U.S. stock index futures

pointed to a steady to slightly higher open on Wall Street, as investors look for further impetus to keep buying.

"After such a good rally, it's not the time to buy right now, it's better just to sit on your gains. The market is quite vulnerable to negative news at the moment," said Philippe de Vandiere, analyst at Altedia Investment Consult-ing, in Paris.

"On the longer term however, earn-ings in Europe will start to recover in the next few months, which should lift stocks going forward." — Reuters •

16 INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Oil at three-month high on Iraq anxiety, stocks steady

By Greg Kawere

Zimbabwe’s technology sector has seen unprecedented growth over the last 3 years but it is my belief that this falls short of the full potential that Zimba-bwe’s technology sector can realize.

Zimbabwe has one of the highest literacy rates in the world which makes Zimba-bwe best placed to take the crown of the leading technology innovator in Africa.

The reasoning is that the technology sector is a knowledge intensive industry, so countries like Zimbabwe with a high literacy rate and a good education sys-tem should be leaders in the technology sector.

Its obvious that this is not the case in Zimbabwe, the problem is that the high literacy rate in Zimbabwe is not translat-ing into tangible economic growth lead-ing to a scenario where we have one of the worlds highest unemployment rates.

Its almost impossible to talk about tech-nology innovation & not talk about HP, Apple, Google & Intel which are all Silicon Valley companies. How can Zimbabwe replicate Silicon Valley’s success in tech-

nology innovation.

I believe that for Zimbabwe’s technology sector to realize its full potential there needs to be strong linkages between

1. Entrepreneurs using the Lean Start-up model

Mentors

Investors (individual & institutional)

Education institutions (universities, col-leges & schools)

Technology Journalists

Start-up events

Networking & coordination

Entrepreneurs using the Lean Start-up model

We need entrepreneurs who are pre-pared to boot-strap their business until they have produced a product which they continuously iterate with feedback from their early customers using the resources that they have.

The lean start-up model was used by

Google, Facebook & HP which are all bil-lion dollar companies. The lesson is you need to develop a product before looking for funding.

The role of external funding is not to get market validation but to fund the expan-sion of a product that has already been validated by customers to reach more customers.

It is also important for entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe to realize that business fail-

ure is invaluable experience and not an mark of incompetence. So fail fast & fail cheap that is to say. Learn from your past mistakes & move on with the hindsight of the experience gained for your future endeavors.

Mentors

We need successful entrepreneurs to be mentors to the younger generation of entrepreneurs. The work being done by Strive Masiyiwa through his Facebook

17 ANALYSIS

How Zimbabwe’s technology sector can realise its full potential

page deserves special mention as a good example of how successful entrepre-neurs can mentor the younger genera-tion to start their own businesses.

What we now need is for coordinated effort among successful entrepreneurs through technology hubs, professional societies, education institutions & var-ious other forums to interact with the younger generation to encourage them and guide them in their journey as entre-preneurs.

Investors

Banks, high net individuals & private equity companies need to realize that there are many opportunities in the Zim-babwe technology sector. All they need to do is to understand how the technol-ogy sector works so that they fund the right opportunities in the Zimbabwe technology sector.

Technology journalist will play an impor-tant role in highlighting the opportunities & also acting as a critical link between investors & entrepreneurs. This model is already showing signs of success as shown by the central role that Techzim (Zimbabwean technology blog) has played in the growth of Zimbabwe’s technology sector.

Education institutions (universities, colleges, schools)

Zimbabwe has more than enough uni-versities, but what is lacking is a culture of innovation & entrepreneurship among Zimbabwean students & graduates.

Our universities need to be centers of technology innovation by creating part-nerships between the growing number of technology hubs, boot-camps, hack-erthons start-up competitions. We need these technology events to target college & university graduates. It is also critical that universities partner with the private sector to fund technology research & innovation.

The high unemployment amongst Zim-babwean graduates means that entre-preneurship is most likely the only option that college & university graduates have.

So it is important that the Zimbabwean education system teaches & encourages entrepreneurship from primary school to university & partners with the govern-ment & private sector in having start-up competitions & creating university based technology hubs to create a steady stream of entrepreneurs. We need col-leges & universities to be at the centre of the technology ecosystem since it is evi-

dent from the likes of Bill Gates, Michael Dell,

Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg & Dave Packard that students make great entre-preneurs.

Technology journalists

The best people to critic & also publi-cize technology entrepreneurship to the world are technology blogs & technology journalists. Technology journalists also help in validating the technology profes-sion as a critical business function to the operations of businesses.

Technology journalists are also a critical link between investors & entrepreneurs as they both play the role of educating investors on the opportunities in the technology sector & also highlighting good technology start-ups. This is done through their articles & the events that most technology blogs have from time to time.

Technology events

We need monthly, quarterly, bi-annual or yearly conferences, boot-camps, hackethons & various other technology events to keep the technology ecosys-tem alive & running. So far Zimbabwe

has two technology hubs (Hypercube & Muzinda Umuzi Hub), the yearly start-up competition & technology events (Broad-band Forum e.t.c) by Techzim.

Limitations of funds is the obvious rea-son why most of these events are limited to Harare, but effort should be made to decentralized these events to to other parts of Zimbabwe & also potentially have locally initiated technology events in schools, colleges & universities.

Networking & Coordination

To round it off we need technology pro-fessionals to be better coordinated & net-worked amongst themselves & with the other actors in the technology ecosystem from the education institutions, venture capital firms & technology journalist.

The efforts happening at the Facebook group ICT PROFESSIONALS IN ZIM-BABWE are part of that processing of having technology professionals in Zim-babwe better organized & coordinated towards having Zimbabwe’s technology sector realizing its full potential.

Greg Kawere. Kawere is the CEO of WebID a technology research com-pany based in Pretoria, South Africa www.webidgroup.com •

18 ANALYSIS