Online Reporter
Lloyd Makonya
Correspondent
ZIMBABWE has embarked on a bold journey to transform itself into an upper middle-income economy by 2030, anchored on industrialisation, value-addition and innovation.
Yet while policy rhetoric abounds, the critical piece of the puzzle is often neglected, which is Intellectual Property (IP).
Innovation by itself is not enough. Ideas must be protected, commercialised and integrated into manufacturing and value chains, and this is where Zimbabwe must act decisively.
At the heart of this effort is the Heritage based Education 5.0 model, which expands the traditional remit of universities (teaching, research, community service) to include industrialisation and commercialisation.
Several State and private universities in Zimbabwe now host innovation hubs, tech-transfer offices and industrial parks shifting from prototypes and concept labs to tangible production lines.
For example, University of Zimbabwe (UZ) Innovation Hub on its website reports: “The University of Zimbabwe has developed a Research-Innovation—Industrialisation Ecosystem which ensures that knowledge generated within the university is scaled up into products, goods and services that are propelled into industry, commerce and society.
This is achieved through a well-defined commercialisation, Industrialisation and Monetisation model for Intellectual Property.
The model is in sync with the Education 5.0 and heritage-based knowledge systems adopted by the Second Republic to achieve the National Development Strategy (NDS1) and the attainment of Vision 2030, to become a middle-income country.”
Since its inauguration in 2019, the UZ Innovation Hub has enrolled over 40 innovators under its programme, with 21 graduate intern start-ups already operational and 15 strategic business units registered (three of them fully operational).
Similarly, Harare Institute of Technology (HIT) has established a Technology Transfer, Licencing & Commercialisation Centre (TTLCC) that explicitly focuses on IP, incubation, licensing and commercialisation of university-generated inventions.
Zimbabwe’s key policy objective of shifting from an import-heavy economy into one driven by domestic production, export, value-addition and technology transfer depends on closing the gap between innovation and industry.
The mandate is, not simply to design gadgets or formulate products, but to manufacture them at scale, protect them under IP and embed them in our domestic economy rather than seeing foreign firms capture the value.
This shift is happening.
According to a 2023 report, Zimbabwe’s innovation hubs and industrial parks at State universities have already helped save the country US$12 million in import costs.
Projects have included local production of industrial and household personal-care products, PPE, and allied health products. The rationale is clear, to substitute imports, build local value chains, create jobs and keep more of the economic benefit within Zimbabwe.
Moreover, universities are producing applied innovations.
Midlands State University (MSU) recently hosted a Research, Innovation & Industrialisation Expo where student/researcher teams displayed water-treatment systems, sodium hypochlorite production lines (for bleach and disinfection), and other practical technologies. The link between research and real-world production is becoming clearer.
Closer to home at Africa University a team of students from the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS) recently developed an Object Detection System (ODS) to empower visually-impaired people with the ability to move safely, confidently, and independently.
The ODS is a wearable, smart navigation system that leverages stereo cameras and computer vision to detect obstacles. The system then alerts users about obstacles in their path effectively allowing them to “hear” their surroundings in 3D.
Yet despite this progress, significant challenges remain, and one of the most crucial is the Intellectual Property dimension.
IP is the legal infrastructure that enables innovators to protect their inventions, licence them, commercialise them, attract investment, partner with industry, and retain value.
As the African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO) Director General, Mr Bemanya Twebaze always points out: “Knowledge and data are increasingly valuable resources potentially more than oil in a knowledge-driven economy.”
In Zimbabwe, the nexus of innovation hub synced with IP protection and industrial manufacturing is starting to be anchored in policy and institutional frameworks.
For example, the UZ Innovation Hub includes a ‘Heritage for Innovation and Development’ programme that explicitly targets indigenous/heritage-based knowledge and value-addition from small grains, local plants and other national resources.
Meanwhile, the universities’ innovation hubs are also being positioned as drivers of the national industrialisation agenda.
However, for this system to deliver in the timeframe to 2030, Zimbabwe must scale up and iron out the institutional bottlenecks. Commercialisation must outpace prototype. Designing a machine or formula in a university lab is wonderful, but unless there is a line, a manufacturing plant, supply chain logistics, market access and branding the value remains unrealised.
That means innovation hubs need clear pathways to spin-out companies, licensing deals, joint ventures with industry and manufacturing facilities.
Secondly, IP literacy and institutional capacity are still limited.
While universities have IP offices the national ecosystem of funding, legal enforcement, venture financing and production facilities is uneven. Stronger links with industry and SMEs are required as innovation hubs cannot operate in isolation. Industry must engage, fund, scale and manufacture.
The IP-industrial pairing must be deeply embedded in value-addition and local manufacturing.
To meet the 2030 target of upper-middle income, Zimbabwe cannot simply be the design hub but it must be a manufacturing hub. That means products developed in university labs must be prototyped, manufactured locally, branded locally and exported.
IP needs to protect those products, so branding, patents, licences and manufacturing rights remain in Zimbabwe. This links innovation directly to industrialisation.
Ultimately, the value chain becomes local, jobs are created, knowledge stays local and profits from royalties, licences and dividends remain local.
The heritage dimension offers a unique competitive edge. Zimbabwe’s rich biodiversity, indigenous knowledge, small-grain economy and craft traditions can be tapped for value-added production but only if IP, commercialisation and manufacturing frameworks protect and exploit them. Zimbabwe is at a crossroads.
The vision of reaching upper middle-income status by 2030 is achievable provided the country shifts from ideas to industry.
Innovation hubs are active, prototypes exist and universities are engaged. The missing link is the robust coupling of IP protection + industrial manufacture + value chain development.
If universities, industry and Government align to protect the ideas, manufacture the goods, brand the products and export them, Zimbabwe will be writing its own manufacturing story, not simply importing solutions, but producing them.
The time to move from prototype to production is now and IP must sit at the heart of that transition.
