Development centred technopreneurship, the way to go?

The ‘new dispensation ‘ is upon us, and as usual Zimbabweans are caught in the loop of ‘great expectations’ of government working to redeem us from our economic woes by creating jobs. History has taught us however the painful but useful fact that as Zimbabweans we have to take it upon ourselves to change our individual fortunes or else we will have to wait for a long time.

That we are coming from a background of economic ruin is unquestionable, and those intending to make a big breakthrough technology business are faced with the grim reality of either no financial start-up support to set off their business or a negative financial forecast.

Back to our economic headache as a country.

Without wasting time trying to diagnose the source or causes of the same, it is pleasant to note that other nations have seen our plight and assisted with aid which has been channeled towards various sectors of the economy. Most of the aid that has been coming into the country has been humanitarian, for example, food aid relief. A shift in focus has however occurred and donors have begun funding more development focused interventions such as sustainable agriculture. Still that has not been adequate to meet our transformative needs. However, most recently, donors have started funding business ventures and for profit enterprises such as market based agriculture production, agro processing, IT and renewable energy.

In the global village, there are many funders who are willing to finance innovative projects that alleviate poverty, address food insecurity, malnutrition, climate change among other things. As technopreneurs therefore we are presented with a golden opportunity to pitch our ideas out to potential funders who are passionate about ideas that create better communities and alleviate human suffering.

The thrust however is not about just necessarily getting grant funding as has been the case with development agencies in the country resulting in neither nor meaningful nor sustainable development taking place. The most important aspect is to have a possible solution (idea) that is based on an identified problem, take for example how Strive Masiiwa identified limited connectivity among individuals as a problem to which he developed the Econet idea.

As technopreneurs I reiterate once again, this is not an impulse based process which anyone and everyone can imagine themselves making a quick buck from. The idea is to have a passion, drive and energy coupled with conviction. When these are in place, one can then seriously take time to think about one problem within their sphere of passion which technology can address.

Now that we have gotten a head-start in our exciting discussion, we’ll pick it up and finish it in the upcoming series of articles.  Upcoming articles outline the problem identification process, potential funding organisations and the grant application process and most importantly potential ideas which can be funded (with case studies from elsewhere).

In summary, the important take home point is that, regardless of the economic situation we are in, the global village we are in presents us with opportunities to fly, as long as we are able to prove that our ideas will make the world a better place.

About Author: Nhamo Dapi is an actuarial analyst, researcher and writer with interests in I.T based software solutions, he can be contacted at nhamo.dapi@gmail.com.