Last Tuesday as I was driving along the A11 Mazowe Road, I
was surprised to see the developments that had taken place along the way. I had
not been on Mazowe Road for 17 years so the National Defence College and the
Amai Mugabe School were new, remarkable and refreshing sightings for me. I had
heard about them but seeing is a different matter altogether.
I was enveloped with a sense of pride that the last 17
years or so were not completely in vain and indeed some form of activity had
taken place in that area. So on my way back, I decided to explore the Amai
Mugabe School which was opened mid-2013.
According to their website, “the Amai Mugabe School is an
independent private school offering educational services to both day and
boarding students. The school was born out of the need to provide high quality
primary education, especially to those children emerging from disenfranchised
family situations.” We were advised that the fees is around $2 600 for day
scholars and $3 500 per term for tuition and boarding excluding uniforms, books
etcetera. No disenfranchised family can afford to pay these fees. To access the
school, the disenfranchised would need full-funded scholarships.
When we enquired about the enrolment figures, the
headmaster was not specific and elusively mumbled some incomprehensible
incoherence. Further research confirmed that the school had been unable to
attract desired enrolments because of the fee structure, essentially making it
a state-of-the-art white elephant. As I marvelled at the expansive and
big-budget infrastructure, the idea of converting it into an innovation hub
became a real possibility.
As Africa is becoming a marketplace for innovation in the
startup tech sector, Zimbabwe is lagging behind in that space. The startup tech
revolution in Africa has been enabled by the setting up of technology/
innovation hubs and incubators across the continent. According to a March 2017
report by Ventureburn, an online startup newspaper for emerging markets, “there
are over 300 technology hubs and incubators in Africa, with 32 of those being
in South Africa.”
Botswana adopted the traditional incubator model when it set
up the fully government funded Botswana Innovation Hub (BIH) launched in 2017
on a 57-acre plot. The BIH operates as a science park, aiding home-grown
technology geeks in science and technology.
Zimbabwe is a resource-rich and dependent economy. In line
with world trends, Zimbabwe need to refocus and diversify the economy towards
the aggressive inclusion of technological innovation as an intervention to
accelerate enterprise development, particularly for the young people who
constitute over 60% of the population. Given a chance, young people possess the
basics of what it takes to leapfrog Zimbabwe into a global centre of tech
innovation and entrepreneurship. India, Singapore, China and many others are
achieving it. Zimbabwe can too.
This is where the world already is and will stay for a
while longer. Zimbabwe is missing in this space. We are missing because we are
still to identify leadership with fresh eyes and unorthodox thinking, with the
readiness and strategic visioning to see this as an alternative low hanging
opportunity for Zimbabwe and then proceed to set aside adequate resources for
the championing of this tech/innovation movement.
Earlier this year, the government set up a $25 million ICT
innovation fund. Given where other African countries are in the technological
revolution, setting aside $25 million shows lack of seriousness and commitment
to this tech/innovation revolution for the country. The way the fund was
conceived and how the funds will be disbursed was haphazard with no depth and
clarity of thought. There is a global tech/innovation war out there and
Zimbabwe has chosen to participate in this war with dried mulberry tree sticks!
Compelling reasons why the Amai Mugabe School ought to be
converted into a tech/innovation hub
l Zimbabwe must be thankful to the former first lady for
having had the vision and audacity to build a school of that magnitude. But we
are all acutely aware that national resources were utilised and they were
expended in abundance. In terms of brick and mortar alone, I stand to be
corrected by saying that it is the best school thus far in the whole of
southern Africa. The International School of South Africa built by Lucas
Mangope during his tenure as the president of Bophuthatswana, then a Homeland
for Tswanas, now part of the North West Province of SA, is a comparable school
in terms of infrastructure, but still, Amai Mugabe School remains above the rest.
l The past cannot be changed and vindictiveness and
revengefulness is cheap. Without wanting to suggest this, a simple lifestyle
audit will confirm that national resources built the school. What I am saying
is, the Amai Mugabe School is a national asset and ought to be used for a
national cause that benefits the nation. It is currently an underutilised,
costly to maintain, running at a loss entity. I am submitting that the national
cause should be Zimbabwe’s first government sponsored tech/innovation hub.
l Zimbabwe does not currently have a tech/innovation hub.
It needs one, like yesterday. The infrastructure at Amai Mugabe School is
adequately suited for this.
l Amai Mugabe school is a stand alone, private institution.
That is a good thing. While the proposal for the tech/innovation hub is for it
to be predominantly government funded, it must ideally have private
institutional and individual investors who have global connections by having
worked in tech/innovation capacities across the globe so that they are able to
replicate this knowledge locally being at the centre of the governance of the
hub. While government must provide the most funding, it must have the least
equity. The hub ought to be a private institution as opposed to a state owned
entity (SOE). If the way the majority of the 107 SOEs are being run in this
country is anything to go by – an issue I have written about before – the hub
will be stillborn from the outset.
l The Amai Mugabe School has boarding facilities ideally
suited for young people to reside in on safari at the hub for long periods of
time, developing tech applications with local and international relevance. We
do not want our tech minds to be worried about kombi fares. They must be fully
funded and resident full-time at the hub.
l The school is out of town, just 38 minutes away but close
enough (39.6 kilometres) to be able to interface with government and business
in the pursuit of finding lasting tech-driven solutions for Zimbabwe.
The former first lady no longer has access to the national
purse and therefore will likely not be able and willing to fund the school
single-handedly in the future. It is a wise move to relieve her of this burden
now.
Gloria Ndoro-Mkombachoto is an entrepreneur and a
regional enterprise development consultant. Her experience spans a period of
over 25 years. She can be contacted at [email protected]
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