Zimbabwe’s 2012 ICT Achievers Awards: The winners

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Zim ICT Minister - Nelson Chamisa
Zim ICT Minister - Nelson Chamisa
Zimbabwe’s ICT Minister, Nelson Chamisa, speaking at the ICT Achievers Awards Ceremony

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.

According to the ICT Ministry, the annual awards are the government’s way of appreciating the efforts of those operating in the ICT Industry by rewarding excellence.

Notably this year, 23rd Century Systems got 3 awards; 2 for the company and one for its CEO Ellman Chanakira who was awarded ICT Business Man of the year. Here are the winners this year:

Top ICT Project Of The Year (Private Sector):  Comviva through Pop Technologies for the new EcoCash platform

Top ICT Project Of The Year (Public Sector): Twenty Third Century Systems for Zimconnect eGovernment project

Top NGO Promoter of ICTs: Community Working Group on Health

Top ICT Businessman Of the Year: Ellman Chanakira (CEO of Twenty 3rd Century Systems)

Top ICT Businesswoman Of The Year:  Josephine Takundwa (Earthlink Technologies)

Top ICT Company Of The YearTwenty Third Century Systems

Top ICT Journalist Of The Year:  Paul Nyakazeya (Business Reporter at The Zimbabwe Independent)

Top Web developer of the year (Individual or Company): Sadomba-Mahari Computers

Top Public Sector website of the yearZimbabwe Tourism Authority

Top Young ICT innovator of the year: Tawanda Chitaka

Top ICT educator of the year (Individual or Institution):  Computers for Zimbabwean Schools

Top Mobile Operator of the Year: Econet Wireless Zimbabwe

Top ICT rural school of the year: Mwenezi High School

Top ICT Urban School of the Year: Seke 5 High School

Top ICT Supportive Bank of the Year: Afrasia Kingdom Zimbabwe

Top Improved ICT Company of the year: E-Learning Solutions

Top ICT Innovative Company of the Year: E-Learning Solution

Top ICT Computer graphics and animation of the year: Nafuna TV

ICT Company with most Impact (Large Business): Econet Wireless Zimbabwe

ICT Company with most impact (Small Business): Blutech Africa

If you’re curious how the nominations and the award winners are selected it’s basically this: the Ministry calls for nominations which are done via a website set up for the awards ictachieversawards.org.zw. An adjudication panel (apparently of adjudicators that don’t know each other) then goes through the submissions to select the winner. So yes, if no one nominated you, or you didn’t know about the awards….

You can view photos we took at the event on our Facebook page gallery here.

33 comments

  1. Zwelithini Mtsamai

    poptechnologies website hacked

  2. ndlovu

    we not takin ourselves seriously yet as a country. yes some probably deserve but vamwe vacho guys

  3. Chenje

    Top public sector website is under maintenance. I hope site was up during the award presentations at least.

  4. fatso

    Top ICT Project Of The Year (Private Sector): Comviva through Pop Technologies for the new EcoCash platform technology hacked! id very worried if i was EcoCash bcz security dzavo obviously need tweaking..

    1. tinm@n

      Top ICT Project Of The Year (Private Sector): Comviva through Pop
      Technologies for the new EcoCash platform technology hacked! id very
      worried if i was EcoCash bcz security dzavo obviously need tweaking..

      Comviva is a third-party that provides the platform to Econet for EcoCash. Whilst its very embarassing for Pop to be hacked, it speaks nothing of the Comviva platform except that Comviva have a partner(Pop Technologies) who cant secure or value their website.

  5. moduledev

    kikikii seka zvako Pop chakuti hacked jus to show how useless they are and now the rest of the country is judged by that munotisekesa mhani ichaita mwedzi iri hacked so just to show how frequent they check their site

  6. Tindo UK

    Tech companies are not serious,they are not even ashamed to collect awards judging with the poor quality of their work.Im not happy !!!

  7. shiz.niz

    ko it seems that the Pop Technologies website has been hacked, and you give it a top ICT award. ???????????????/

  8. tinma@n

    WTF? Sadomba-Mahari-Computers?!! Top web developer of the year? ….I must be exhausted. Tomorrow it will just be a nightmare. Good night

    1. fuzza

      What’s wrong with Sadomba-Mahari Computers winning the award… From all the other nominees, they were the only ones who could win it coz I mean the runners up has many websites which get hacked on a daily basis. I haven’t heard of a single Sadomba Computers website getting hacked, not even their own…!!!

  9. KudaM

    is this a joke? was there any competition or changachiri chizivano?

  10. Tich

    TechZim, Did the ministry reveal the panel judges for these awards? The outcome is questionable. I was shocked by the Web Developer of the Year for 2012 & 2011. Surely something is wrong in the way these awards are issued

    1. L.S.M. Kabweza

      Nope, they didn’t reveal. apparently it’s because the judges are not supposed to be known, or to know each other. Transparency is a clearly not something they like 😉

      1. KudaM

        L.S.M i think all the criteria should be judged by an independent panel and audited. Sha i like Chamisa but it makes look bad. I think they should have an online poll for such stuff and we vote. The people’s choice is much better.

        I also must say with the level of Web Design we see around, even Zambia has better websites than we do. I am a Digital Strategist and when i look at Online Innovation in Zim zvinondibaya. I have had a chance to visit ZISP (Zimbabwe Internet Service Provider), the atmosphere is boring. Thats not how it should work. Energy yacho haa haipo. What can we do to develop our country.

        Top 10 IT Fails

        1. Lol i will not speak.

        1. tinm@n

          I also must say with the level of Web Design we see around, even Zambia has better websites than we do.

          I dont know how people make such declarations…I guess they just type it.

          How many websites do you know that “we do”? Do you know them all? And if there were some in Zambia better than others in Zim…and then what? What is so demeaning by a Zambian website being better than a Zimbabwean one?

    2. tinm@n

      From my understanding, people are nominated first. It makes it likely that people chosen may be the best from the nominations but may not necessarily be the best, nationally. Not clear if they win by poll/ tally or “the judges” then make a decision using their own assessments of the nominees

  11. allan

    Top ICT Supportive Bank of the Year: Afrasia Kingdom Zimbabwe???

    really? for those of you with kingdom accounts, please could you login into the ebanking site and try and view an online statement for your account. this list of award winners is a definite sham!

  12. Dread

    This is really poor. I am really disappointed with the winners esp of the web developer of the year. Come on guys. Is that the best our country has to offer. Just look at their own website. What other work have they done and for who? Is there anyone who has confidence in these guys. What did these guys do to deserve that award? Reflects badly on the Ministry of ICT when they give out awards to people who clearly do not deserve the awards at all

    1. fuzza

      Dread… Their websites aren’t bad… But you should have been at the award ceremony man… They won it coz of a CMS they build which is good. It’s better and more secure than Joomla and WordPress so as compared to the other nominees, me think they deserve it!!

  13. Concern Shoko

    I here the “reporter of the year” Paul Nyakazeya was fired from The Independent in 2011….these awards are a shame!!!

  14. Time

    haha what a sham of an awards list! I bet 3/4 of the people/companies on the list got there simply because of whom they knew. The tourism site has been down for months now and as for the top developer?…Hows about the likes of C2, Byers etc? Supportive bank of the year should’ve been FBC…their pre-paid mastercard and other services I’ve used are a dream come true for travel and online purchases!

  15. kunta Kinte

    Elearning well done Itai. You have been working patiently and schools both rural and urban are in the ICT Loop from the little I know about the rest these guys deserve a pat on the back. Afriasia Kingdom have failed to get their internet banking up since they upgraded to T24! They give you bank statements with no running balance. Cell card not bad high numbers signing up and its working but hey top ICT bank guys get real

  16. Summernyika

    Something is definitely wrong in these awards … what criteria is used to choose who is best in each category? Who decides who is best? Honestly speaking how can the Zimbabwe Tourism website be called the Top Public Sector website of the year when their site has been offline for a whole month or so? That award can safely be awarded to techzim.co.zw for their efforts to inform us on ICT issues.

    1. L.S.M. Kabweza

      Except we are not a “public sector website”

  17. purple

    These votes seem rigged. Serious thats the best web developer in the country…… after visiting the site….I was left with a sour taste in my mouth

    1. fuzza

      Well visit all the other nominees and tell me if their sites are any better lol

  18. GizmoDuck

    Top Web developer?! Hate to judge a book by its cover but no

  19. AnonymouslyRed

    Hacking, hacking, hacking. I guess next time around the should be a : Company That has Never Been Hacked: award, maybe the all you who are fussing about hacking will win. this POP watever did something good to be up there…..cumon guys Symantec!!! has been hacked.

  20. Hackme

    I dont see anything wrong with the Sadomba-Mahari website. As for POP, if someone hacked it, someone is interested in it. Im obviously interested now.

  21. bob

    sadomba-mahari.com – nigga pliz! The ICT Ministry should be held accountable for bringing our entire ICT sector into disrepute. Honestly, what happened to Webdev or Cyberplex or even Freelancer driven Web Entangled zvayo. Why dont Techzim start their own credible ICT Awards?

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