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Shepherd Chimururi Youth Interactive Correspondent
From keyboards, mouses, USB cables, chargers, headphones, earphones, memory cards, projectors, interactive boards and computers among others, why is it we do not manufacture any of these gadgets ICT in Zimbabwe yet our colleges and universities are churning out thousands of graduates every year?
This million-dollar question points to the slow growth of the e-learning industry.
Most schools cannot afford the high-end price of imported tech gadgets.
More soul-searching questions arise: Is it a question of patents?
Or the lack of drive to manufacture by industry leaders?
What kind of expertise are we really missing?
Is it the lack of capital needed to kick-start such a project?
More precisely what is needed to manufacture a USB cable?
If key components used in the manufacturing of cables like copper, rubber, aluminium, thermoplastic, and thermosets are locally available how are we then missing it as a nation?
Imagine how many keyboards, USB cables, and chargers that are in homes, classes, offices, and countless shops dotted around the country?
Imagine what would be the benefits if they were all manufactured by a Zimbabwean company.
As much as there is a need to pursue the latest tech innovations but as long as the foundations made of basic things like mouses, cables, laptops, and computers are not there , then all will be in vain.
Aspiring winners of the Presidential Innovation Awards which were launched recently to inspire, recognise and reward innovative centres of learning and students so that they contribute to improving Zimbabwe’s resilience by providing technologies, goods, and services that Zimbabwe wants, must work on the need to do mass production of home-grown tech gadgets.
Inter-generational wisdom says necessity is the mother of invention and here we are hundreds of thousands of students without tech gadgets.
Some schools missed VHS players, never used a projector, then missed DVD players, and now there are touch-sensitive interactive boards.
As long as we import every conceivable tech gadget to be used in e-learning majority of schools will remain stuck in the chalkboard age.
There is a need to study, copy and implement and to a certain extent tweak the Chinese system that has seen them grow capabilities of being self-sufficient in terms of technology manufacturing base.
It is not a secret that most of the manufacturing of tech gadgets jobs are shipped to China by the West.
We can start our own tech manufacturing revolution.
Lest we forget, almost two decades ago the Chinese would copy and reproduce radios and television so as to just change name until they invested in their brands. Huawei is now a global competitor.
It might take us some time to get to this but if we start now with a small plant to manufacture a mouse and a keyboard in five years we should be known for supplying the world with something based on our strength as a country.
We are not far off because we are supplying the tech gadget countries with raw materials. If we can do the manufacturing in our country, it will of course increase our GDP and make the products cheaper.
Once we start exporting something of value as a finished product then we can dictate the market price by decreasing or increasing the supply.
Look at what the OPEC countries are doing with fuel.
The US$1 we are paying for a cable seems cheap but if we dig deeper we can find out that same dollar is able to pay workers in the factory, contributing tax, transport to Zimbabwe, making a profit for the owners of the company in the country of origin and when it lands here it pays for transport, tax, salary for and rent for the shop, gives the shop owner profit as well.
This means we are exporting jobs to other countries yet our graduates are jobless while unnecessarily losing precious foreign currency as a country.
Online Reporter