• A Zimbabwean geek’s letter to Santa

    Me and Santa have been good pals since the PTC days when life was much simpler. For all my troubles the only choices I had to make were between Surface Mail, Air Mail, Telegraph. Calling my infamous and terrible aunts was a small matter of giving their numbers six weeks in advance to, you guessed…

  • 2012 roundup: The year in review

    The year kicked off with one of the largest ISPs in Zimbabwe ZOL, announcing that it had been acquired by Liquid Telecom, a move which resulted in the Econet Wireless Group cementing its position as Zimbabwe’s largest telecoms firm.

  • Her Zimbabwe too has been hacked

    Earlier today, we posted an article noting that popular local entertainment blog Zimbo Jam, had been hacked. The website has since been fixed, but it turns out they were not the only website on the server that was hacked. Another local website herzimbabwe.co.zw, was also hacked. The information was availed to us via our Facebook…

  • Here’s how to get Amazon and iTunes Gift Cards for Free*

    Do you know there are services out there that will pay you to try their apps? FreeMyApps is one such. Basically, how it works is an app developer comes to them and says “we’ll pay you to get your audience to download our free app”. FreeMyApps takes their money, assigns a credit value to the…

  • Utande expands offering with introduction of Wi-Fi hotspots

    Wi-Fi hotspots are the next best thing for internet users who don’t want to commit themselves to “on the go” mobile broadband plans like those dongles that work sometimes and not sometimes. They also serve as that crucial backup internet when your usual office or home connection (or Dongle-wanaland itself) shakes you off the network…

  • Holiday deals: Free music download only if browsing from a Zim internet connection

    On the Internet, being identified as a Zimbabwean surfer usually results in being locked out of the good stuff like PayPal, Facebook advertising and their friends. A Zimbo (and UK) rock band Mann Friday is offering the opposite; Only if you have a Zim IP address will you be able to download their latest album…

  • Zim information minister calls for regulation of the internet, social media

    A report in today’s Herald newspaper says Zimbabwe’ Media, Information and Publicity Minister, Webster Shamu, has called for the “appropriate regulation of the internet and new media platforms”. The Minister, according to the report, is calling for this because the potential of the internet to cause strife in society.

  • Thank you. Yes, you.

    It’s been a great year for us. It has. Traffic for the site more than continues upwards. The visitor engagement on the site, one of the things we value most here, increased significantly. With the help of some selfless individuals, Techzim answers is delivering locally relevant tech answers much better than it did a year…

  • Some noteworthy discussion points from the ePayments Forum

    As party of the ongoing discussion following the ePayments Forum that was held exactly two weeks ago, we’ve decided to post here the main issues that came out of the event. You can read more about the event itself on the sub site dedicated for the event here: epayments.techzim.co.zw

  • Our Christmas give-away to Zimbabwean startups: 1 month free advertising

    For a while now we’ve been thinking about how we can provide some startup friendly advertising opportunities on Techzim. We get roughly an average of 6,000 page views a day and we know that could help a Zimbabwean mobile or web startup company get word out there about their great new service. But we also…

  • Zimbabwe’s 2012 ICT Achievers Awards: The winners

    The winners of the ICT Ministry organized ICT Achievers awards were announced last week Friday at a function held at Cresta Lodge in Harare. Now in their 3rd year the awards were presented by ICT Minister, Nelson Chamisa, and Thokozani Khuphe, Zimbabwe’s deputy prime minister.

  • Moroccan hacker compromises 3 South African government websites

    A report on Tech Central says three South African government websites where compromised by a Moroccan hacker and as of yesterday morning, one of the websites, the social development department’s population.gov.za loaded a black page with a message from the hacker. The website was taken offline and currently still is. The other websites are the…

  • #263Chat: Tweets on tech and tech entrepreneurship in Zimbabwe

    Earlier this week I was guest on the weekly #263Chat discussion hosted by Nigel Mugamu where the discussion was centered on tech in Zimbabwe; the state of, the challenges, possible solutions, opportunities, funding for entrepreneurs and other issues. #263Chat is a really interesting way to have a realtime virtual gathering and discuss important common issues.…

  • Why most Zimbabwean start-ups AREN’T failing. That is the question.

    Yes, that’s right. You didn’t miss anything. Zimbabwean startups ARE NOT failing. They aren’t failing enough. That’s because they are not many start-ups in the first place. The better question to ask is: Why there are not a lot of Zimbabwean start-ups.

  • Redefining biNu, a mobile content platform with a social framework

    Everything is the opposite in emerging markets, there are not many screens in the average person’s life, and the one screen that is there is the mobile and they use it as a primary means of internet access not a secondary or the third level. This is the internet for many consumers, and they are…

  • ICT Ministry holds validation workshop for National ICT policy framework

    Today we attended the validation workshop of the National ICT Policy Framework conducted by the Ministry of ICT at a hotel in Harare. You will remember that Zimbabwe’s ICT policy is under review and in June & July review workshops were carried out around the country by the ministry.

  • Why most Zimbabwean start-ups fail

    Building a successful Start-up is every entrepreneur’s dream, but recent world statistics show only 1 in 12 succeeds. Why do start-ups fail? Why are Zimbabwean start-ups failing? Why are all those brilliant ideas going down the drain?

  • Want to learn something new & useful? Try these innovative free online startups

    Education as we know it is changing rapidly across the world, it is now easier for anyone to get the same high quality education offered by the world’s best universities such as MIT, Stanford, Berkeley and Harvard.

  • Wireless parenting: Beauty and the Mist

    On July 4 2012, I took up a challenge to bring enlightenment to mothers and grandmothers, through the Harare Women International Society, and chose to speak on how to manage relationships on the internet at such uncertain times as we are in; hence the title.

  • Instagram’s new web profiles

    I love taking pictures with Instagram, it’s an amazing photo sharing app available on both iOS and Android. For some time now it only had mobile profiles, but now users […]

  • Econet slashing some Buddie tariffs by as much as 80%

    You’ve probably heard that Econet is trialing some ultra-low cost voice rates for its Buddie customers. It’s true. A new – but not yet launched officially – Econet voice promo […]

  • biNu Social is here, a lightning fast mobile social network

    In August, after biNu’s much reported $2 million Series A funding round, we noted that the emerging markets “Smartphone in the cloud” service seemed to be morphing itself into a […]

  • Why the ZAMPS Internet usage survey results are inadequate

    The results in the recently released Zimbabwe All Media & Products Survey (ZAMPS) are strange. The internet part at least. Last month, when the report came out, our opinion, after […]

  • We were down this morning

    Some of you noticed you couldn’t open the Techzim website this morning. We were down. For about 2 hours our web host had some server issues. Fortunately, they were able […]

  • The problem with grant and challenge funded entrepreneurship

    Today I read an article that noted something we discuss often with colleagues here. It’s also an issue that I find a lot of people strongly disagree with; the issue […]

  • Midlands State University SIFE team comes 4th in Enactus world cup

    In April this year we had the opportunity to attend a TEDxChange event in Harare where a student team from a local university, Midlands State University, presented a project called […]

  • Comment: Of stolen concepts & VAS

    Yesterday’s “they stole our idea” issue is a story we hear often here at Techzim. Reading from what has been made publicly available by both parties so far, how this […]

  • Is JAM TV the future of TV?

    At the recent JumpStart Challenge event Collin Franco, Utande’s CTO quoted an interesting stat, based on research that he had conducted about a year ago. He stated that 98% of […]

  • IDSS hosts cocktail to introduce Cyberoam UTM Solution

    This week we attended a corporate cocktail event in Harare hosted by Integrated Digital Security Solutions (IDSS), a company so far known for the distribution of the Eset security solutions […]

  • Econet joins lotto-like value added service race

    Just under two weeks after Telecel announced its question & answer vas promo, Econet has followed with its own. The Econet announcement was made on the company’s Facebook page on Monday […]