‘Young people must be innovative’

Leonard Ncube Victoria Falls Reporter

Young people have been implored to be innovative and invest in research for them to be actively involved in the country’s industrialisation programme.

Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Primary and Secondary Education chairperson Cde Torerai Moyo said Parliament and Government were committed to empowering young people to realise their goals and become job creators.

He was commenting on the works of a group of seven youths from Bulawayo that designed a Jotter digital learning platform which can be used for research and interaction between teachers and learners. The group’s innovation was patented by Parliament with support from the Ministry of Finance.

National University of Science and Technology (NUST) computer science students Bongani Dube, Tinashe Goko and Kudzaishe Bhuza, Lupane State University (LSU) Development Studies student Rudo Mudzingwa, Sibongumusa Ncube from Africa University where she is doing a degree in International Relations, Melissa Gonda, a Social Work graduate from the University of Zimbabwe and Rukudzo Nyoka, a Social Science graduate from the African Leadership University in Mauritius, designed the Jotter learning platform with help from Friedrich Naumann Foundation Zimbabwe in response to effects of Covid-19 on learning. Jotter is an integrated digital platform that seeks to cater for both learners and educators’ needs with study material accessed using internet connectivity or short message code for offline browsing on any type of mobile phone that is connected to a local mobile network service provider.

It also gives access to counselling, psychosocial support and other services to children, especially around safe reproductive health, drug abuse, child and gender-based abuse and others.

The group presented the Jotter prototype to Parliament during the Parliament pre-national budget seminar in Victoria Falls last year.

Cde Moyo said Parliament has since helped the group to patent its invention.

“We as Parliament have helped a group of students that came up with a Jotter learning platform to register it. They sent us a budget to the tune of US$120 000 and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development has promised to fund it.

“Concerning the patent, we wrote a supporting letter to the Deeds Office and it took three months to have the documents. They now have documents and the fact that they have achieved something in an innovative programme is very important, especially where students can read some notes on different subjects that they do in the curriculum without using the internet,” said Cde Moyo. He said the Speaker of Parliament Advocate Jacob Mudenda was keen to see innovations and patents by young people funded. Creating innovations is a way of creating employment which is key in line with the country’s aspirations for an upper middle-income society by 2030.

Cde Moyo said Parliament encourages research and innovation from early childhood development to university.