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JumpStart Intellectual Property presentation in Harare this Friday
On Friday this week, the JumpStart community will hold its second event. This event covers a topic that concerns many a would-be entrepreneur in Zimbabwe; that of Intellectual Property (IP), specifically, the answer to the question; “How is my IP protected?”, or a more direct variation of the question; “What if big company X steals…
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The changing face of the web development industry
It’s almost safe to say that history is repeating itself. A few years, specifically prior to the year 2008 companies such as Cyberplex were known to rule the roost and getting a website for a company was a comparatively sizable investment. There was the initial cost of getting the site developed, and the fixed monthlies/update…
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Africom finally kills off the loss leading $18 bundle
In October 2010, Africom made a bold unprecedented move in the history of the internet in Zimbabwe. Fresh from the launch of its new red brand and mobile broadband services, the company announced the pricing of its data packages; the cost of a 1 gigabyte bundle was US $18. It was crazy. It was fantastic…
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How much the price of internet connectivity can reduce in one year
A year ago, US $50 per month unlimited broadband was only offered by one internet provider, the state owned PowerTel. Many would argue doesn’t really ‘need’ to make money. It wasn’t the best internet in town, largely because of congestion issues, but PowerTel afforded many small businesses and middle income earners an opportunity to have…
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Our information technology predictions for 2012
Another exciting year in information technologies lies ahead with a lot of promise for the continued growth of the sector. Below, we provide our thoughts on what we think 2012 holds. It would be great to know what you the reader think in the comments.
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The top Zimbabwe tech stories we covered in 2011
With less than two days left before the close of the year, we thought we’d post a listing of all the top stories we covered this year. This has been our busiest year since.
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YoAfrica drops broadband internet price to $50 uncapped
There’s some good news we’re discovering as the year comes to an end. YoAfrica, one of the biggest internet service providers in Zimbabwe, has slashed its home broadband internet offering to US $50 a month. And if a customer pays for a whole year (which we don’t advise by the way) the price drops further…
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Thank you
Most of you readers will be logging off your work machines this week, and since most of our readers access Techzim from work, we just want to express our gratitude while we still have your attention.
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Utande on the reasons broadband is expensive in Zimbabwe
Local Internet access provider (IAP), Utande, published a column titled “Techno Talk” in a local weekly last week. First, we’d like to commend them for this and we hope the column is going to be a regular one. It’s not every day that an internet provider comes out to say their view of connectivity issues,…
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Review: Brodacom mobile broadband internet
About two weeks ago, we received three mobile broadband (and one of them primarily a voice device as well) from the Spiritage Group company called Brodacom. We got the opportunity to test the three devices over about 6 days, which gave us a more or less clear picture of the performance. We tested the devices…
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Mukela.com: Selling the Dream
This post is by Mukela co-founder, Tawanda Sibanda, was originally posted on Launching Tech Ventures. It contains Mukela’s experience selling their idea to Hotels locally. Some great advice in there for tech start-ups. Mukela won the the inaugural ZOL Start-up Challenge in September this year.
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Utande joins the 4G race. Alepo & Dimension Data working on the platform
Alepo, A US based company providing enabling infrastructure for telecommunications service providers, announced today that it has entered into a partnership with Dimension Data to roll out 4G services across Zimbabwe for Utande, a local ISP.
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Are women afraid of venturing into ICTs
We came across a lively young lady after yesterday’s Breakfast Briefing on Cloud Computing. While the event was a success, this young lady touched on a few details that could make such events even better. The highlight of her feedback was that there were only four women in attendance at the event and that promoting…
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Webdev to launch a Facebook for Zimbabwe
Webdev, the internet company behind Zimbabwe’s most successful online classifieds will be launching a social networking website in the coming weeks. So far the website is called simply Social but we’re told there may be a change of name. Visiting the website’s address on social.co.zw loads a ‘launching soon’ banner and some points about what…
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.co.zw domain registration problems. Who’s to blame? What can be done?
One of the main drivers of local content is local people being able to easily register a domain in the .zw space. Being able to find information on how to do this, being able to easily contact a registrar and get a domain registered without difficulty, and being able to proceed with the task of…
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Day 1 of Zimbabwe ICT Africa 2011 (Pictures)
We’re just from the first day of ICT Africa 2011. The first day is dedicated to business and invited guests, though really no one is prevented from attending. We spent most of the day going around the stands and speaking to people about the stuff their tech companies are doing.
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Our ICT Africa 2011 wish list
Later this week, this year’s ICT Africa exhibition and conference will take place. It’ll run from the 5th to the 7th of October. It’s Zimbabwe’s ICT industry flagship event, organized by the Computer Suppliers Association of Zimbabwe (COMSA). This year however (and last year as well actually) there’s great involvement by the Ministry of ICT…
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Domain registration in Zimbabwe: Interview with ZISPA chairman
We promised to post an interview we had with current ZISPA chairman, Troy Prinsloo, on these issues. We had it a couple of weeks ago. It’s a long interview and we had to cut out parts we felt didn’t contribute much to the subject. It still remained long so if you don’t have the time…
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Startup Challenge: Open for applications to 15 August qualifying event
At the qualifying Startup Challenge event, held last week alongside BarCamp Zimbabwe on 3 August, only 2 startups, Mukela Travel and Sadomba-Mahari, managed to make it to the finals. The target was 5 startups to battle for the collective prizes totaling $25,000 – sponsored by Zimbabwe Online (ZOL).
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MTN rolls out Africa and Middle East Apps Challenge
MTN Group- Africa’s biggest telecommunications firm; has introduced an Africa and Middle East focused app development contest. According to an article by Business Day South Africa last week, the company has begun the challenge as part of a build up to the launch of its own app store. It is inviting software developers across its…
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How to: Ubuntu and mobile broadband connectivity
I have said elsewhere in the series that the Ubuntu experience is not complete unless you have internet; good internet I mean. In addition, I provided a guide to choosing your ISP. In this article I will provide you with a guide to connecting to the internet using mobile broadband (the dongles) but before doing…
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Ubuntu and choosing your Zim ISP
In my previous article I mentioned the fact that Ubuntu is not much fun without the Internet. It has been my experience that not all Internet Service Providers (ISP) are the same and that there are some caveats for a Zimbabwean Ubuntu user/administrator when it comes to either choosing an ISP or administering his system…
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The infamous pirate Jack Sparrow plagues local ISPs
It feels like yesterday when l was starting up an experiential marketing business. One of my clients was Ster Kinekor Theatres. I vividly remember the regional GM regularly flying into Zim for reconnaissance meetings; each time we ran through the SWOT analysis one bugger kept popping up! Ster Kinekor HQ (South Africa) placed a bounty…