As many of you know, the Harare Agriculture Show has since kicked off and its quite a tech spectacle (for those with the time and patience). Right at the main entrance we managed to bump into the ZPC stand. Yes we had the usual models of the Kariba Dam Wall but what caught out attention was an HTC Vive Virtual reality kit and a monitor showing us what the participant was experiencing.
In the VR Headset was playing a virtual tour of Zimbabwe’s two biggest power stations, Hwange Thermal Power Station and Kariba Hydro-Electric power station. The screening is a 360° virtual tour taking you through the boiler sections, showing overhead shots of the plant and the dam wall.
The tour also includes a virtual guide that helps you make sense of the maze, pipes and corridors narrating your surroundings to you for an even more immersive and intuitive experience.
ZPC, through their PR Fadzai Chisveto approached a couple of techies from a company called N-Sho Technologies asking them to take on this project complete with the VR tour app which is available on Android and Apple App stores.
All this is to spice up their exhibition and provide a more interactive and FUN learning experience to something that one might have dismissed as a boring stand(unless if you love miniaturized models of very big things like me).
Even more interesting, apart from trying to stand out at a very competitive exhibition is how a parastatal is choosing to keep with the times and differentiate themselves by going the tech route. Seems like new things are happening after all.
Lastly, you don’t need a Vive to enjoy the spectacular scenic shots of these power stations. You can download the app on Google Play or the App Store but there is a catch. Power stations are a high security area making it a security risk for every random person to have detailed videos of the power stations lying in their smartphones. So the actual footage can only be accessed from their booth at the Harare Show grounds.
One response
These N-Sho guys always seem to pop up when there’s some out of this world innovation involved. Why is that? I met them at ZITF and I believe they won that also.