The Ministry of ICT now has a new face in Hon. Tatenda Mavetera who is popularly known for her role in the ZBC classic soapie, Studio 263. Congrats and welcome. We bid you a fruitful tenure and we also come bearing a wish list. Our hopes and dreams if you will.
Some low-hanging fruit
- Enforce good governance at Netone, Telone, and Telecel and get a team that makes those businesses commercially viable.
- Attract investment in infrastructure (mostly connectivity).
- Overhaul and resuscitate Zimpost for the 21st century. Get a leadership team that can do this.
- Engage stakeholders to understand and then implement how to attract sustainable investment for startups.
- Invest in tech skills development.
- Make government services available online in the most intuitive way possible.
- Influence colleagues in government for technology adoption, and awareness of tech impact (opportunities/threats) in the daily operation of government.
- Be ambitious about new technologies and encourage investment and research. Realize we have many opportunities to leapfrog if only we are intentional and creative.
- Find tech and business entrepreneurs and executives across the world and actually meet to listen to them. If you can’t bring them in the same space, go to where they are and listen to their problems, and concerns.
- Create spaces where tech entrepreneurs can access the basics (broadband, machines, ICT resources) with entry based on having successfully gone through entrepreneurship training like Empretech.
- Facilitate tech and business exchange, and training – the ministry has to identify global opportunities that help with networking and skill building. They should help get locals into companies like Alibaba, Tencent, and Huawei and be trained. Even arrange the free Chinese language training for those that want it.
- Exchange tech business visits should also be arranged to African tech and innovation hotspots.
- Invest government funds in backbone infrastructure and bandwidth.
- Invest in startups but only in ones where local and global private investors are also investing in.
We don’t expect you to know it all on day 1…but an effort to want to understand is all we ask
Some of these may be low-hanging fruit. Some may need a bit more digging into. There definitely is more than what is on our wishlist. A good sign to us that the ministry is in great hands is seeing a top-down interest in understanding the sector…(We do not expect you to be an expert on day one) so plenty of engagements with key players in the ICT and startup space. Basically a crash course on the ministry that has been placed in your custodianship.
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Comments
25 responses
This is pointless, since when has Zim gvt cared or listened to anyone?
We expect that under the second republic they listen those we as Zimbabweans we have negative minds towards the leadership to some extent but assessing the progress from 2017 if you are educated enough you will see that they have been some great achievements in some of the key areas and as of now we except stability in policy making tho in the last term there was policy volatility do to trial and error and UpTo know we except that there will be great change…. Let’s be supportive and give the team chance again to continue try their best…
We except good innovation solutions in tech space
These are very noble and brilliant ideas, I think the minister should form a small advisory panel that includes relevant stakeholders so as to help shape policy and development of the sector over the next 5 years!
Please assist; what are the minister’s academic & professional credentials? Coz it seems what people are hung up on is the studio 263 bit…
From Pindula: Mavetera did her primary education at Riverside Primary School and then later went to Nashville High School. She did her A’ Levels at Denmark College.
In 2019 Mavetera was said to be studying for a Doctorate in Business Leadership. She is a holder of a Masters Degree in Strategic Marketing from Midlands State University and a BSc Management/Marketing Degree from Women’s University in Africa.
Not sure how up to date that is, but apart from that, she put in her time in Zanu, is youngish, is a woman, has a moderate residual good will from Studio 263, is a business woman, allegedly knows how to utilise state security apparatus to solve personal disputes and from the right angles, she looks like she could be in Number One’s family tree. That relative youth is gonna be key in understanding some of the current tech landscape.
What a C.V….I hope they are not honorary degrees
Pretty good wish list
Too long a list. First get connectivity right……..
Brilliant, l for one support this letter to her.
Speaking of low hanging fruit, they could start by fixing all the government websites. Most of our government websites look like they were done by amateurs. Ministry of ICT website as of now has so many dead links and does not have SSL certificate so a web browser will flag it as insecure. Quite an impression for an ICT ministry.
Do web developers do style guides/site manuals? Coz I think the ministry needs to create and maintain one so they tame the wild west of gov sites
Government is currently working on egovernment services with the judiciary’s IECMS being one of the Project
Hello Tech Zim
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bruh i see this on every single article
Video
Add to this open up licensing to allow WISPs! More competition is good for the consumer market.
Starlink !!!! ndomashoko angu okupedzisira
Unleash the Musk!
Noble ideas, please take them to her desk as well
I’d hope they at least bookmark Zim tech blogs or set Google alerts for easy weekly roundups
You know what? My first instinct was to be cynical. A minister doing something other than securing personal wealth?! No way!!! But this time, I’ll actually set my expectations a bit higher than zero. Not to the point of thinking they will not abuse the office for every last drop, but to the point doing at least doing the easy half of this list as they squeeze the office! I’ve set a reminder to check back, and on that day I’ll either laugh at my foolishness or be mildly shocked that someone actually tried giving more than lip service 👀
‘Overhaul and resuscitate Zimpost for the 21st century. Get a leadership team that can do this.’
😅Argh! When my pops finally came home to visit, his disillusion was palpable when he saw what had become of the post offices! He made his career there, from the bike saddle to postmasters chair.
The amusing thing about these posts, on blogs and social media, is that people make it seem like the problem is that the folks in charge have no idea what is plaguing the country vis-a-vis their respective ministries. That has never been the problem!
Make good relations with USA. We need official access to their sanctioned goods/services e.g OpenAI
I agree with Tarmica Sean Chiwara.