This short series of 6 articles will cover the profiles of each of the six finalists that made it into the finals of this year’s ZOL Jumpstart Challenge to be held this Friday, 14 September. Startup: Equinox Education (by Qurious Consulting) Year founded: 2011 Team: Jacob Shamuyarira , Tonderai Shamuyarira and Tafadzwa Gutsa Equinox School Management System [...]
This short series of 6 articles will cover the profiles of each of the six finalists that made it into the finals of this year’s ZOL Jumpstart Challenge to be held this Friday, 14 September. Startup: mTutor Year founded: 2012 Team: Douglas Chifetete, Prince Kaguda, Nigel Gambanga, Blessing Bonde mTutor was a winner of the Etxt Mobile Apps Challenge [...]
This short series of 6 articles will cover the profiles of each of the six finalists that made it into the finals of this year’s ZOL Jumpstart Challenge to be held this Friday, 14 September. Startup: Nimbus Year founded: 2012 Team: Taps Murove Nimbus Crowd is a SMS application that uses crowd-sourcing to answer questions. The way it [...]
This short series of 6 articles will cover the profiles of each of the six finalists that made it into the finals of this year’s ZOL Jumpstart Challenge to be held this Friday, 14 September. Startup: RLMS (Remote Livestock Marketing System) Year founded: March 2012 Team: Allister Banks RLMS – Remote Livestock Marketing System is Zimbabwe’s first online marketing [...]
This short series of 6 articles will cover the profiles of each of the six finalists that made it into the finals of this year’s ZOL Jumpstart Challenge to be held this Friday, 14 September. Startup: Lost and Found Year founded: April 2012 Team: Jacob Kudzayi Mutisi & Philip Samudzimu Lost & Found is an SMS application [...]
This short series of 6 articles will cover the profiles of each of the six finalists that made it into the finals of this year’s ZOL Jumpstart Challenge to be held this Friday, 14 September. FootballZone has been featured here on Techzim before. Unlike the rest of the entrants, FootballZone is not based in Zimbabwe’s [...]
The BarCamp and ZOL Jumpstart Challenge website is up. It’s challenge.jumpstart.co.zw. Over the past few weeks, we have been working to secure sponsorship for both the BarCamp and Jumpstart Challenge. We have also been working to structure the events and processes to incorporate lessons from last year’s events. On the Jumpstart Challenge, we are excited [...]
So it’s been a whole year since the first BarCamp and Startup Challenge, an another one is on the cards. This year’s challenge has been announced today on the Jumpstart website. The BarCamp Zimbabwe event is basically meant to get tech entrepreneurs, developers, designers and really anyone passionate about mobile and web tech into one place for a [...]
Paul Graham, Founder of the Y Combinator incubation hub once spoke of the ingredients required to create Silicon Valley. He summed it up as a combination of:
Rich people (angel or VC investors) + Nerds (talent)
The February edition of Forbes Africa has a feature profiling the top 20 startups from the African continent. As expected, mobile played a dominant role with Mxit coming up tops as the most promising startup. In the truest sense of the word startup, Mxit might not qualify as it went through institutional investors and is more than seven years old. Definitions and valuations aside, the geographical origins of the startups profiled serves as yet another call to action for those of us in Zimbabwe.
Today, we have some exciting news that we know tech entrepreneurs, developers, designers and others among you would love to hear. At the end of this week, JumpStart, an initiative we’re part of, will be holding its inaugural event at the Harare Club in Harare.
Nearly 2 weeks ago, we had our first ZOL Startup Challenge final where 3 talented winners were chosen from a very strong field. Since then the dust has settled and a number of people have made comments on the Challenge and process. I thought I’d give some thoughts as the idea originator, main sponsor and one of the four judges.
The depth of talent showcased at The Start-up challenge gave me renewed optimism for Zimbabwe. I wish to congratulate the deserving finalists and the organisers for putting on a fantastic show. Although some projects didn’t end up making the finals, most had strong concepts and I hope the entrepreneurs are not discouraged but continue to pursue their ideas. Even as we celebrate this success, we need to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the format used, to build on the strengths and improve on the weaknesses to ensure even more successful events in the future.
As you probably know, tomorrow is the big day; Five finalists in the ZOL Start-up Challenge will battle it out for the top prize at the finals. The top start-up will be awarded US $5,000 cash and US $5,000 worth of internet services from ZOL. Two runner-ups will each get US $2,500 cash and US $2,500 in internet services.
Today, we’re happy to announce that one of you our readers also get to win something in the challenge.
Hardware Inventory is a proprietary Windows based application developed by Softwarehouse, a local startup that began on the back of their Quickstem Suite-a floriculture management software that has been used by farmers in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, and the Netherlands among others. Quickstem was beginning to gain traction until the global recession resulted in less demand for the product, combined with local challenges the flower growing sector has faced locally.