Chronicle Editor
Bongani Ndlovu, Chronicle Reporter
MORE females must be encouraged to be innovative as this year only 10 out of 50 were involved in the Innovators Forum during the just ended Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) in Bulawayo.
The ZITF Innovators Forum was held at the Members Pavilion and brought together students from various universities to pitch their innovative products to solve some of the challenges in Zimbabwe.
The ZITF Innovators Forum is organised and sponsored by Utande, Elevate Trust and TelOne.
Some of the products cover health care, environment and climate change, education and Information Communication Technology solutions.
During the Innovators Forum it was clear that there was a major gender imbalance in favour of males, something that organiser, Ms Sicelo Dube director of Elevate Trust, said was disappointing.
“My disappointment was that the girls were only a fifth, which is 10 out of an attendance of 50. I’m motivated further as the STEM Lady to continue advocating for more girls to take up the innovation space,” said Ms Dube.
“We are happy to have the young people involved in this value chain. My excitement was seeing that the students showed up, things have been hard, a lot will say they’ll come but they don’t. We had a 100 percent attendance.”
Ms Dube said the Innovators Forum was important, encouraging companies to challenge the youth to come up with innovative solutions to their problems.
“The innovators Forum is a great initiative that ZITF has done to involve the young people, and to show the business world and corporates that business has to involve the young people and that the young people are the innovators that they need for their solutions,” said Ms Dube.
She said hopefully the winners would inspire others to be part of the Innovators Forum.
“We want to see the teams that win, going on to be an example for next year’s group. For us to say this is the team from last year and they have started a company. They have their first product being used where and they are doing what,” said Ms Dube.
Last Friday at the official opening of the ZITF, Mr Tendai Gatahwa, a Computer Sciences student at the Midlands State University scooped the Best Innovator Award at the ZITF Innovation Forum.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was the guest of honour at the official opening ceremony presented Mr Gatahwa with the ZITF best innovator 2022 floating trophy and a medal.
Mr Gatahwa is the captain of MSU’s Nerd IQ team that came tops at the innovation pitch challenge where 14 teams fought it out for first place.
Nerd IQ also came tops at the ZITF Hackathon challenge. Eight teams took part in the challenge.
Mr Gatahwa’s winning innovation is a decentralised e-business system that uses artificial intelligence to supply chain challenges. — Follow on Twitter @bonganinkunzi
Online Reporter