The OPTIMMUNIZE 2022 conference in Denmark gave researchers a chance to present groundbreaking findings that would save newborns. Before the meeting, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus opened the conference and spoke about how the infant mortality rate has more than halved globally since 1990 but newborn mortality has not kept pace. In 2020, 2.4 million…
By Hillary Munedzi The Paynow seamless payment system will solve the high poverty levels besetting the economy, with 73% of the population earning not more than US$100.00 per month according to the Finscope Consumer Survey. Vulnerability indicators, according to the 2022 Finscope Consumer Survey point to more hardships for the majority of Zimbabweans, with 68%…
Mobile telephony giant NetOne yesterday belatedly joined the rest of the world, in commemorating the International Day for Universal Access to Information (IDUAI). As a key stakeholder in the Telecommunications & ICT sector, the company reckons the importance of the day which is significant in its inclusive thrust to ensure access to information for all….
The in vitro fertilisation (IVF) programme which was reintroduced in Zimbabwe in 2016 by a team led by Dr Tinovimba Mhlanga has proved a great success with 197 live births recorded so far and more expected before the year ends. With almost 500 treatment cycles having been performed, this gives an overall average success rate…
Sowell Chikwari A leading energy and power development firm, Power Giants Southern and East Africa has received yet another feather in its cap after clinching a prestigious accolade – The best Innovative Electrical Engineering Company in Renewable Energy and Electrical Engineering at The Annual National Iconic Entrepreneurs Awards held in Harare yesterday. The vibrant and…
On 8 November 2022, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and 1Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre launched the first phase of a project to establish a major green hydrogen plant in Egypt’s Ain Sokhna on the Red Sea. President El-Sisi and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre launched on Tuesday the first phase of a project…
In a clear sign of commitment to upscaling digital penetration and inclusion, Harare Province has been blessed with 10 community information centres (CICs) commissioned today. The initiative is in sync with the National Development Strategy (NDS1) that emphasises the Digital Economy as one of the fourteen national priorities for the period 2021 – 2025. This…
The Regional Research Observatory on the Environment and Climate (RROEC) has been inaugurated in Djibouti in a bid to produce data and climate models to inform political decisions on climate adaptation and resilience for the country and across the East African region. Established with the assistance of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), RROEC was…
By Kavit Majithia MTN Group finalised a deal to sell its holdings in its subsidiary in Afghanistan, progressing a goal to exit the Middle East, and highlighted gains across fintech and growing data traffic in a quarterly trading update. The South Africa-headquartered operator stated it had entered into an agreement with Beirut-based M1 New Ventures…
By Charles Dhewa There is no shortage of abandoned small to medium-scale food processing plants in many African countries. After getting into a community and seeing abundant tomatoes, mangoes, pineapples, and many other types of fruits, some development agencies and government departments have been compelled to mobilize resources for setting up a processing plant. However,…
The Postal and Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) has granted Dolphin Telecoms a mobile virtual network operator licence, paving the way for a fourth mobile service operator in the country. Dolpin’s managing director, Nyasha Charumbira, told Kukurigo Business that the company has partnered with one of the three mobile networks to deploy Zimbabwe’s first…
By Hillary Munedzi Africa’s emerging processing sector faces a myriad of challenges including limited access to finance and poor infrastructure. As a panacea, calls have been made to create a conducive environment to attract tech-savvy youths. A new report launched in Harare during the 2022 Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS) conference illustrated…
By Godwin Mungwadzi Zimbabwe’s Robotics team won the XPRIZE Gold Medal Innovator award, at the 2022 FIRST Global Challenge games – an Olympics-style, international robotics competition for high-school students from around the world that aims to celebrate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics — also known as STEM in a similar way to how Athletics and Sports…
By Hillary Munedzi Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have been urged to take advantage of the digital shift and exploit the opportunities that come with it in creating a brand that is easily recognizable from a global perspective. Officially opening the SMEs international Expo in Harare yesterday on behalf of the Ambassador of Malawi to…
By Hillary Munedzi Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have been urged to use artificial intelligence (AI) in their businesses so that they have a competitive edge in analyzing data which helps them to understand their business terrain in a bid to attract more customers. Speaking during a SMEs International Expo at a local hotel, in…
The Cyber and Data Protection Act is meant to address an array of cybercrimes that have become a burden to society, Dr. Jenfan Muswere, the Minister of Information Communication Technology (ICT), Postal and Courier Services has said. He made the remarks today at a Cybersecurity High-Level Dialogue – one of the many activities that have…
By Zachary Makanya Many of us have been cautioning Kenyans not to embrace GMOs for a long time and we thought our reasons were clear to all. We were very happy that the Government of His Excellency Hon Mwai Kibaki listened and respected the wishes of the Kenyan farmers and consumers to ban the commercialization…
There is a high demand for mobile telephony giant NetOne’s products and services at the ongoing Sanganai/Hlanganani World Travel Expo in Bulawayo. NetOne is participating at Sanganai/Hlanganani World Travel Expo and is showcasing a wide array of digital solutions including its popular USD bundle to local and foreign delegates. “Apart from the airtime that is…
Distributed Power Africa (DPA), a subsidiary of Cassava Technologies, and a French multinational power utility firm Électricité de France (EDF), have clinched a deal to construct a 4 megawatt (MW) solar plant in Kenya. The two companies, which co-own DPA Kenya, on Thursday signed an agreement with the Devki Group to provide renewable energy solutions…
By Elvis Dumba Chinhoyi – The Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education’s thrust for education 5.0 aligned syllabus which encourages higher learning institutions to produce innovative graduates is offering practical rather than theoretical solutions to a myriad of challenges faced by the nation. The country’s higher institutions of learning are now focusing on techno-innovative-based programs…
While there is consensus on the need for low-carbon energy, the new energy mix must also support Africa’s social development and the upliftment of its people. This was the message from several delegates to the VIP and Ministerial Symposium of this year’s Africa Oil Week conference running from 3 to 7 October, at the CTICC….
By Chris Donkin Vodafone Group and IBM became the first members of a GSMA industry taskforce formed to help shape policy and business processes for mobile operators in the era of advanced quantum computing. The industry association noted the GSMA Post-Quantum Telco Network Taskforce aims to enhance protection for telecommunications systems in this new era,…
Zimbabwean Telecommunications Expert, Dr. Cosmas Zavazava has made history by winning elections for the powerful and coveted Director Telecommunications Development Bureau (BDT) position at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) after an electrifying three rounds of voting at the ongoing ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Bucharest, Romania. Zimbabwe has never occupied an elective position in any of…
By Elvis Dumba President Emmerson Mnangagwa has commissioned Chinhoyi University of Technology’s (CUT) Industrial Cattle Fattening Pens and Medicinal Feed Factory at the CUT Farm near Chinhoyi. Officially opening the Industrial Park this Friday afternoon, President Mnangagwa said other universities should imitate CUT which has shown that it is a trailblazing institute in advancing technologies…
By Chris Donkin Apple scrapped plans to increase iPhone production in H2 compared with the amount made in the same period of 2021, with demand for standard versions of its latest flagship rumoured to be weaker than anticipated, Bloomberg reported. The news website claimed suppliers had been told to cut targeted production of units of its iPhone…
By Wallace Mawire The Harare Institute of Technology (HIT) is hosting a tech-innovation expo week from Monday 26 September to Saturday 1 October 2022 at its University Campus in Belvedere, Harare to provide a platform for academia, captains of industry, and the engineering sector to discuss the future of the country’s manufacturing industry. According to…
By Edward Makuzva The Joint Clinical Research Centre in Kampala has teamed up with Fred Hutchinson Center in Seattle to develop a gene therapy treatment for HIV that will be ready for testing in Uganda by 2024 and this will be the first gene therapy trial in Africa In light of the increasing global…
Address by the POTRAZ Director-General, Dr. G.K. Machengete The Director General of the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ), hereby presents the key trends observed in the Postal and Telecommunication sectors during the second quarter of 2022 as follows: Mobile, Internet/data and fixed telephone subscriptions Active fixed telephone lines increased 1.5% to reach…
Power utility, Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) is taking concrete steps to ensure a reliable supply of electricity. Speaking to Spiked Online Media following an inquiry into the steps being taken by the power utility to address intermittent power cuts, Eng John Diya, speaking on behalf of the ZETDC Acting Managing Director, Eng…
The Rainbow Tourism Group (RTG) has demonstrated its commitment to providing renewable energy and implementing green initiatives when it installed a 300 KVA solar plant at the Kadoma Hotel and Conference Centre. The solar plant generates 0.3 MW of solar power for the hotel and has become the main souce of power ahead of the…
Zimbabweans living in South Africa have been given a platform to buy Econet airtime for their family and friends back home through an innovative service called 263 Toppa. The new international airtime transfer service, which was recently launched by Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, allows an estimated 1 million Zimbabweans working and living in South Africa to…
There is a nexus between network connectivity and local content in driving development in the community and at the national level, experts from the Postal and Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) have said. There are advantages of local content in relation to community information centres (CICs), Hilda Mutseyekwa, Director, Economics, Tariffs, and Competition for…
By Joseph Waring Samsung Electronics refreshed its environmental strategy, earmarking more than KRW7 trillion ($5 billion) for green initiatives by 2030, targeting net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and joining RE100, a global renewable energy initiative. The company stated the investment will go to researching new technologies to develop energy-efficient products, increase water reuse and foster…
A call has been made on online content creators to focus on churning out positive content as stakeholders journey towards Vision 2030 of attaining an upper-middle-income economy. In his keynote address, while officially opening an online content creation two-day workshop by the Zimbabwe online content Creators (ZOCC) in partnership with the Postal and Telecommunication Regulatory…
Business Process Outsourcing – more commonly known as ‘BPO’ – is one of the fastest growing ICT-based industries that is creating jobs and upon which the new economies are based, Dr. Jenfan Muswere, the Minister of ICT, Postal and Courier Services has said. He made the remarks in his keynote address at the Contact Centre…
The Zimbabwe Online Content Creators (ZOCC), in collaboration with the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ), is set to hold a historic two-day workshop in Kadoma that would allow both practitioners plying the vast digital space and the regulator to compare notes on how they could streamline their fledgling working relationship for the…
Information, Communication, and Telecommunications (ICTs) are positively impacting industries, offering the opportunity to develop new business models, and paving the way for future generations, Dr. Jenfan Muswere, the Minister of ICT, Postal and Courier Services said during the 25-anniversary celebrations of Dandemutande in Harare. He said ICTs unquestionably possess a great deal of ability to…
In the quest to continue to offer technologies that bring positive change in people’s lives, Ecocash Holdings has launched the Ecocash Junior Wallet to ensure a financially inclusive future for Zimbabwe. Speaking during the launch in Harare today, Mr. Munyaradzi Nhamo, the Ecocash Holdings Chief Operating Officer, said Junior Wallet is a continuation of the…
Mobile network operators and power utility, Zimbabwe Electricity and Distribution Company (ZETDC) depend on each other for viability. Speaking to Spiked Online Media during the ongoing Zimbabwe Agricultural Show (ZAS), Mr. Prosper Mutswiri from the ZETDC public relations unit alluded to the importance of a reciprocal interface between the power utility and MNOs in offering…
The leading provider of voice and broadband services, TelOne, has introduced a new product onto the market – Crop Monitoring Service, in a move anticipated to position the company in the smart agriculture sector and transform remote farming. In an interview with Spiked Online Media at the ongoing Zimbabwe Agricultural Show (ZAS) in Harare yesterday,…
Econet Wireless Zimbabwe has started charging headline tariffs in United States dollars (US$) with effect from September 01, 2022, following regulatory approvals. The company’s customers will now be able to use US$ airtime directly for voice, SMS, data and internet services without first converting it to bundles. Econet first introduced promotional US$ smart bundles in…
With the 112th edition of the Zimbabwe Agricultural Show (ZAS) coming after a multiplicity of challenges ranging from climate change-induced droughts and the COVID-19 pandemic, NetOne is offering an array of digital solutions as a panacea. COVID-19 brought with it lockdowns that led to the closure of businesses and schools as people adopted a new…
The Zimbabwe Academic and Research Network (ZARNet) has said it enjoys synergies with organisations like NetOne and Telecel in a bid to attain its mandate of providing reliable and sustainable Internet and other ICT Solutions to the academic, research, and educational institutions and any other government establishments in the country. ZARNet is a grant funded…
Econet Wireless is back in full force at the Zimbabwe Agriculture Show (ZAS) this year, after not being able to fully participate at the popular trade event over the past two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The leading telecommunications company did participate at ZAS with limited staff and a scaled-down exhibition in October last year, due…
By Hillary Munedzi Young farmers in the East and Southern African region (ESAR) walked away with mentorship and coaching opportunities totaling $30 000 in the Nestlé Needs Youth Initiative held in Johannesburg, South Africa recently. In celebrating International Youth Month, the Nestlé Needs Youth Agri Competition, which ran from June to July 2022 received over…
