Techzim

Zimbabwe and regional technology news and updates


Zimbabwe Stock Exchange gained $5bn market cap, but what does that mean?

“ZSE gains $5bn market cap” I saw this in the Sunday mail and failed to perceive if this was a bad or good thing. I mean I tried reading the report but all I could see were a bunch of percentages and figures that failed to make sense to me. Do you happen to also […]


EcoCash has its own website now promising more utility

EcoCash has finally grown enough to move out of the Econet website. It now has its own clean website with a few perks here and there. Lets dive in and see what it has. Quick NetOne, Econet, And Telecel Airtime Recharge Number to recharge: Airtime amount ($): EcoCash or OneMoney number: Buy Please dial our […]


How are foreign investors coping in Zimbabwe? Maybe we can all imitate them

Foreign investment giants like JP Morgan Chase are also feeling the heat in Zimbabwe as far as the foreign currency shortages are concerned. These guys hold stocks in some companies that are listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and like everybody else they can’t move that money easily out of the country if they decide […]


Looking for a job? You in the right place…

A Fintech company in Zimbabwe, Golix ( Update: previously known as BitFinance) has some fresh vacancies… 4 to be precise! This is obviously good news, I mean it goes without saying. There isn’t much formal employment available, in fact there hasn’t been in a while. So here’s a chance for you to be that Product Manager, Designer, Data […]


EcoCash remodeled website now has increased utilities

No doubt that EcoCash has really grown and they have the stats to prove it. Techzim in June, wrote about the milestone growth of the EcoCash ecosystem, i.e. the merchants, agents and ultimately all subscribers. As such, EcoCash has decided to have its own website, not an extension of Econet’s, but a separate one altogether […]


Can the Total Card help you budget? Yes. Here’s how…

Even in these hard times, I’m sure you can all agree with me that the temptation to live beyond our means continues to get the best of us. Well, what’s interesting is that there are some service providers who still strive to ensure that they give us some form of competitive advantage over such life […]


Want to travel conveniently from city to city at a cheap price?? one word: SmartGo

As they say, “it’s always good to review something you’ve written about before”,so let me go ahead and do it. By the way, by ‘they’, I mean my colleagues and I ?. Over the past few years, ride sharing and/or on-demand transportation centered startups which leverage on mobile apps have been on the rise, it […]


2008 is back again. You better hack your way past it #MyZimbabweHustle

‘Winter is coming!’ That was Ned Stark’s cry throughout the first season of Game of Thrones and this theme carried through to the end of season 5. Now we are in season 7, indeed winter has come and it came first for House Frey. Don’t worry, I will spoil no further. ‘2008 is coming again!’ […]


How do you get numbers into your business? Let’s look at how NBS is doing it

The other time we wrote about how to solve the chicken and egg problem citing examples of how other startups and businesses have solved it. You might want to read the initial article here to get how we defined the concept and where it applies. After reading it, I decided to do a mini case […]


Liquid Telecom does more than fibre and connectivity today

Who said being a techie meant you can’t relate with human feelings??? Liquid Telecom, a data, voice and IP provider in eastern, central and southern Africa did not only supply fibre optic, satellite and international carrier services today, but rather ventured into a different field altogether – wheelchairs. Well, maybe wheelchair is the proper term […]


Conversion of everything. Yes please!

The struggle is real out there, or at least it’s been real for me in the world of file conversions. So I would get my YouTube videos in a format that would be cool to play on my laptop but just play the audio only or the video only or refuse totally on my phone. […]


Private schools, local languages and all the rest…

Sometimes it doesn’t make sense why certain stories find their way on Techzim right? An example of such is this very article. Why would a tech blog talk about vernacular languages in the education system? Here’s the short explanation: First, you are right, Techzim is a tech publication with a hint of business. Education, however, […]


Get ahead of the queue, buy your fuel online

I always wondered why people used the Total Smart Card to buy fuel for their cars. To be honest, I thought it was a futile attempt to show status. Of course if you are a business owner or have the buying decision in any organisation, the Total Smart Card has always made sense. This is […]


Don’t change your Zim number across the border: use Econet Plus

When I was in Victoria Falls on Tuesday, I heard the Ghanaian Deputy Minister of Communications speak. He didn’t speak much, he was not really in the programme but I guess it was a respectful gesture to give him the podium since he was there (the only such senior member of government except the Zimbabwean […]


Here’s something from NBS that other banks can take home…

When I first read Tinashe Nyahasha’s article on NBS, I thought he was rather exaggerating with all the praises he showered the bank staff. So, I decided to go check it out myself. Unfortunately, due to geographical limitations, I could only access the Bulawayo branch as opposed to the Harare branch which he (Tinashe) had […]


Hey career parent, who is raising your child?

Last month my colleague shared a bit about our trip to Nyanga, to The Troutbeck School particularly. He then launched a series to discuss the Montessori system as an alternative approach to education. There is a lot to explore on the Montessori method in general and The Troutbeck School specifically. However, in this article I […]


Zim businesses will compete another day; this week they dialogue at #ZNCCCongress2017

Business is a competitive discipline. It has to be because competition introduces efficiency in the market. Competition drives innovation and technological advancement. Without solid competition in commerce you and I (customers) are dethroned from being kings and queens. No customer is a king in an economy where they do not have choice. We welcome competition. […]


The flash drive or memory card just stopped working? You can recover all you lost with Disk Drill

So a couple years back I went on a trip with nothing but a smartphone and a charger. I love taking photos which I did a lot up until my only form of digital storage inconveniently got corrupted. Gone are my epic photos, my premium collection of music, all my data vanished into cyber space. […]


BitMari hosts a career fair (27 June)

BitMari, a Pan African Blockchain platform, will host a career fair at Rainbow Towers Hotel, Harare, Tuesday 27 June 2017 at 1730Hrs. Positions available & requirements are as follows: 1. App Developer Cordova/ionic iOS Android Javascript (angular js) Blockchain/Bitcoin Interest Able to use CLI and GIT version control API dev and usage 2. Developer PHP […]


Fake news peddlers lie about offering NBS backed loans

So there is an organisation calling itself the Caleb Trust that has sought to capitalise on the value proposition on offer from National Building Society. The only problem is that this organisation is doing this illegally. The Caleb Trust has decided to use two powerful things to prey on the Zimbabwean public: social media and […]


Your cast away is someone else’s treasure – sell it on Ownai

Ever since becoming an adult, there has been one thing that my sister has continuously been fighting my mother on: Clutter! The Shona word she uses to describe it is the most fitting word for clutter I have ever heard, ‘hungwandangwanda,’ (I am sorry I cannot translate this to English). I discovered that clutter is […]


In Zimbabwe typically everyone with a bank account has a facebook account

In a survey we conducted recently we discovered that Facebook is still a big deal in Zimbabwe no matter what this author thinks: I thought Facebook was dead. 87% of respondents said they visited Facebook everyday, 61% of them do so at least 10 times a day! Of course this part of our ongoing survey […]


A different kind of education in Zimbabwe: Our visit to a Montessori school

A few weeks ago, I went to see a Montessori school. When a colleague here at the office told me he had a trip planned to go see “a different kind of school” for our referral articles, I asked to join him. He had mentioned that the school uses the Montessori way of learning and […]


GOING SOLAR: Understanding The Equipment – The Inverter (Part 2)

In last week’s instalment of GOING SOLAR we looked at the various types of the POWER INVERTER available. This week we are going to look at how we select the right inverter to meet our needs. Before selecting an inverter there are three main inverter ratings that we MUST understand about the inverter we want. […]


So much can go wrong on the internet!

The thing we love most about the internet (at least those of us who have opinions) is the power to transmit your thoughts barrier free. This power however, can really be scary for businesses. Gone are the days when they controlled what conversations people have about their brands or at least which conversations most people […]


GOING SOLAR: Understanding The Equipment – The Inverter

In this week’s installment of GOING SOLAR we shall take a look at the POWER INVERTER. The Power inverter, could simply be described as a box of electronics that converts the power from your battery to the power used by your TV and fridge. In reality though these boxes vary greatly in how they achieve […]


GOING SOLAR: Understanding The Equipment – The Solar Battery (Part 3)

In this week’s installment of GOING SOLAR we shall take a last look at the solar or deep discharging battery. Today we are going to take a last look at the battery and then combine what we have so far, the SOLAR PANEL, CHARGE CONTROLLER and BATTERY and size a basic 12 volt DC power system. […]


GOING SOLAR: Understanding The Equipment – The Solar Battery (Part 2)

Last week we started looking at one of the major components of your solar power system, the battery. In summary last week we looked at the types of battery’s available, how they are sized, capacities and their life span. As we continue the discussion around the solar battery this week, we have been asked to […]


GOING SOLAR: Understanding The Equipment – The Solar Battery (part 1)

In our continued journey to understanding GOING SOLAR, in the last weeks we have looked at some of the major components involved in going green. So far we have looked at SOLAR PANELS, and the CHARGE CONTROLLER. This week we take a basic look at the battery. This is a huge topic in itself and […]


GOING SOLAR: Solar Power Design Basics – Solar Charge Controllers

The Article below is a sponsored article with content supplied by Clamore Power. Please see our policy on sponsored stories. In our mission to understand GOING SOLAR, last week we started looking at solar power systems major components. The four major components we are looking at before we design a basic system are the following: Inverter Battery Charge Controller […]