Document Support Centre, Utande rule the roost

and outreach through their products, but it really looked like the most outstanding and innovative companies went straight for the medal.
Controversy could have been raised concerning the selection process for the two winners, but I really felt for once that everyone was a winner.

If this writer had been tasked with the selection process, honestly that would have been a Herculean task considering that all the exhibitors were at their best but in different categories.
Of course, the organisers really made winning look so easy but let’s hope they had also worked flat out before their decision and it’s probably time we say congrats to the winners.
No company was exhibiting below standards not to win, It is honestly impossible to compare the best of different worlds and hope to come out with an overall winner from a pool of hardware, printing,

ISP, data back-up, software support, learning solution, customer-related management and many more.
Frankly, this was also not an easy task for the deciding panel but maybe awards should have been given according to categories, but simply because there were awards to be given, someone really had to be a winner. At least that’s my take.

Two companies went away with the prestigious awards, the best stand award and the most innovative award. Document Support Centre scooped the first prize of the best stand award and Utande claimed for the most innovative award.
Document Support Centre is an IT company in Zimbabwe.

According to the their management, Bytes documents in South Africa appointed Document Support Centre as the exclusive Xerox Distributor in Zimbabwe. Xerox is synonymous with personal and business printers and photocopiers in both colour and black and white.
Showcasing from their stand, DSC had copier, print and scan machines, some were three in one machines and they really had so much activity at their stand.

Xerox had these gigantic industrial printing and photocopying machines on their stand and when Vice President Joice Mujuru and ICT Minister Nelson Chamisa stopped over, chances are high there were also swept off their feet by these industrial beasts. Their A2 size machines could have aided them to steal the limelight while other exhibitors shipped in small to medium-sized devices.
Printing and photocopying is a lucrative business in Zimbabwe, quite a number of businesses are running solely on offering these services.

It has been a source of employment for both new and seasoned players of the industry and expanding it will impact positively to the economy. These printers are now being used to make business cards, event cards, magazines, flyers, invoice books and many more.
For young entrepreneurs, this is a viable avenue to seriously consider.

While Utande scooped the most innovative prize, this should also be an encouragement for all players to work hard in introducing unique products so that our industry does not rot in stagnancy against global technological advancements.

Utande, a subsidiary of Dandemutande, managed to showcase their innovation through cloud computing.
After interviewing the Utande staff, it proved that their hand held device with instant online connectivity helped them win the award.
They had a portable device that could instantly connect and arrange their online diary in real time to meet customer-related management.

This is a form of cloud computing which falls under the Software As A Service (SAAS) and Platform As A Service (PAAS).
Cloud computing is still a very new technology even in developed countries and also international IT giants are still carefully implementing it.

In its simplest definition, cloud computing is a process of moving from the traditional reliance of a computer to make all services available via the “cloud” or Internet for storage, data processing and programme application.

Dandemutande is a Zimbabwean Internet Access service provider that connects to the Internet via Seacom undersea fibre optic cable.
Utande is among the first to offer customers a state-of-the-art data centre for cloud-based computing centre.
Cloud computing enables clients to reduce costs by delivering hosted services such as accounting solutions, storage and server services, email filtering and virus protection. The most popular cloud computing services are Gmail services and bit torrents servers which allow you save and share gigabytes of data at a very premium charge online.

The Utande team also boasted arrays of virtual servers and storage area network and equipment hosted on behalf of a number of clients.
They also tagged their intranet speeds at a whopping 600mb/s running on their fibre backbone.

Zimbabwe thrives on such innovation and organisations that really have technology at heart.
Government alone cannot cover the technological gap but all companies in IT will need to play their part so that one day we will successfully bridge the gap.
As a country passionate about technology, we cannot afford not to capture such spectacular events and activities.

More support from all stakeholders has to be offered for the development of technology in Zimbabwe.
A total mindset shift has to be made for us to realise and utilise the benefits of ICT.

The writer will put continuous effort in highlighting all the activity at the recently ended exhibition.
Such noble conferences deserve support and every player has to be motivated to keep working hard to realise new goals and move from the mediocrity syndrome.

Enough support has to be offered to all seasoned and aspiring players and one day Zimbabwe will give birth to its own Silicon Valley.