Author: Taf Makura
3 Common Myths & Misconceptions I’ve Heard About Entrepreneurship and Africa
It appears that in Africa, entrepreneurship is the new hype, everyone is talking about it in philosophical and fantastic terms yet very little facts and figures are going around. Africa is a land of magic and miracles, where many things can be attributed to witches, angry ancestors, miracles and God’s anger. In some circles, facts […]
Infrastructure Sharing debate: What should we take from the State vs Econet standoff?
Over the last couple of months, particularly the last couple of days there has been a lot of hell and dust raised in the telecoms infrastructure sharing debate culminating with some startling threats this week from a government minister. Government’s unusual ultimatum for a local telecoms operator(Econet) to dismantle entire shared base stations and fiber […]
USSD can kill roadblock corruption, here’s how
The Problem In Zimbabwe corruption has certainly gotten out of hand, particularly police corruption at police road blocks/checkpoints. With the introduction of mandatory traffic spot fines for all traffic violations in Zimbabwe, the local police force has become more forceful and aggressive in their conduct during these stops. This is worsened by the fact that […]
Why EcoSchool will be good for the ecosystem
EcoSchool launched its education platform a few days ago. Hopefully it will bring to an end the questions and speculations that we’ve had to deal with at Mazwi, a start up that I have been a part of since 2013. What does the EcoSchool launch mean for our startup in particular and the digital education […]
$9 per flight – Zimbabwe’s FlyAfrica.com leaves experts baffled by its model
How’s this for a bargain, R99 to Johannesburg from Victoria Falls, 6 times a day on an aircraft. I’ll elaborate, Flyafrica.com is promising a nine-dollar flight to South Africa from Zimbabwe on a Boeing 737 jet aircraft! That is if their CEO Adriana Hamilton-Manns is to be believed. During a recent interview on CNBC Africa’s […]
How mobile micro-credit loan schemes can devastate our economy – Part 2
Taxing the informal sector, like our government is preparing to do will only eat further into the already small incomes of informally employed members of our society, forcing them to rely more on micro-credit as a means of coping with poverty. This will likely result in a largely poor population that is stuck in debt. […]
How mobile micro-credit loan schemes can devastate our economy – Part 1
A lot has been said here at Techzim and other places about Econet’s foray into mobile micro-finance. As is the custom with anything that Econet Wireless does these days, there has been some suspicion and general skepticism about what EcoCashLoans means for Zimbabwe, some of it has been unjustified. For that reason, I feel that […]
The Adventures of An Imaginary Superhero Minister of ICT – (Part 2)
This is part two of a three part series. You can find part 1 here. Note: It was brought to my attention that in the first installment of this series the imaginary minister of ICT is a man, apparently. In the interest of gender equality, henceforth our imaginary minister becomes a woman. The Minister Goes […]
The Adventures of An Imaginary Superhero Minister of ICT – (Part 1)
Some time back The Herald reported that the Minister of Transport, Obert Mpofu, had authorized CMED (Pvt) Ltd to identify “suitable equipment and relevant technology to achieve efficiency.” Amongst the requirements of the technology the minister mentioned was a system that could easily detect authenticity of licenses and to check for road traffic-related offenses. The […]
Crowd Sourcing: Here is how you can help find Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
It’s close to a month now since Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en-route to Beijing. A US-based satellite company has now come forward with a novel way to crowd source the search of flight MH370. While many theories and outright conspiracy theories have emerged speculating the whereabouts of […]
Dr John Mangudya at RBZ: What Does it Mean For EcoCash & Mobile Money?
If you were waiting, the wait is finally over, former CBZ chief and Economist Dr Mangudya will be the new substantive Governor of The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. This comes at a time when the government is making deliberate efforts to re-position the Reserve Bank as the engine of Zimbabwe’s economic recovery. The Herald reports […]
Hire Fast, Fire Fast: it’s about time Zimbabwean startups start firing somebody
Recently I came across this interesting article highlighting tips from 8 Silicone Valley big shots at Y Combinator’s Startup School 2013. The advice has been turned into some artsy infographics you can have a look at here. From the advice given I was immediately drawn to the bits that related to hiring, nurturing and understanding […]
How an App & SMS can help end ZESA load shedding
Today most of the African continent is in pitch black darkness. literally! The Zimbabwean government, like a number of other African governments, has not – for one brilliant reason or the other – invested in new electricity generation capacity. To put this into perspective, in 2014, 13 million Zimbabweans will rely on generation capacity that […]
Econet’s Liquid Telecom now worth half a billion?
On January 12 Last week Altech announced the offloading of an 8.6% stake in Liquid Telecom Holdings to Econet Wireless for a reported $55 million. While this move has further secured Econet Wireless Group’s control of what is now Africa’s largest terrestrial fibre network operator. It has also shed more light on the value of the […]
PayPal finally responds to my Zimbabwe sanctions allegations (well, sort of)
Because Pay Pal has continually requested that Techzim take down pictures containing its trademark, I’ve decided to put a picture of these two pot bellied pigs instead, no symbolism intended, enjoy. Many Zimbabweans don’t buy the story that sanctions against Zimbabwe affect everyone, that is until they attempt to use PayPal with a Zimbabwean credit card. […]
2014, a tech prophecy for Zimbabwe
Behold, this vision was given unto me by my mind. Listen carefully and bookmark these words. Gigabits will soar on Wings like eagles. I see what appear to be kilo-bits turning into a megabits, I see megabits mounting on wings like eagles and turning into Gigabits, behold it is beautiful. But across the land, like […]
How a Local Startup is Re-Imagining Online Video (You should be part of it too)
In February Three startups emerged from British Council’s Culture Shift Challenge. One of them, Bigeyes , walked away with 2nd place, £1500 in cash, mentorship, and internet sponsorship. With that they promised to revolutionaries the way we share and consume online video locally. While this may all sounds wonderful, in a world where Youtube calls […]
Tomorrow: 7 things to definitely maybe expect from the next iPhone(s)
September 10, tomorrow is the big day. The launch of Apple’s new flagship iPhone(s), the smartphone conjured by the brand that started it all. The smartphone age at least in the form we now have it today was shaped by one company and epitomized by one man. It’s no surprise then that when Apple announces […]
Yahoo’s new logo: what Zimbabwean CEOs and founders could learn
After 30-days of one new corporate logo a day towards the big unveiling of what is now Yahoo’s new corporate brand mark since its founding 18 years ago, we couldn’t help but imagine that Yahoo under new CEO Marrisa Meyer, was now doing things in a different manner, the good kind of ‘different’ . Yahoo […]
5 Reasons why your Idea is much harder to steal than you think
This article first appeared on Taf Makura’s personal blog, tafmakura.co.zw. So somewhere in your head is the greatest idea in the world, well guess what, the fact that your idea is still stuck somewhere in the cavity of your brilliant brain and not changing the world probably means that it’s much harder to pull off than […]
How graphic design & technology can end taxi chaos in Zimbabwe
Boarding a Taxi or a public bus – while it might seem like a simple enough task elsewhere; In Zimbabwe It has lately become a very dangerous affair. There have been very recent reports of deaths, robberies and police kidnappings involving taxis. But before this article grabs the attention of the UN and the global sanctions machinery, these reports are very few and far between but by no means non-existent.
9 things to expect: Multichoice’s ‘Explora’
For a long time, Digital satellite television hardware technology has remained mostly stagnant in our part of the world. The last big thing in satellite technology was the launch of Multichoice’s PVR decoder which heralded a revolutionary (at least for us) non-linear TV viewing experience; viewers could now pause live television. Since then, a lot has changed.