The theme running through the whole agenda is AI agents: software that doesn’t just answer questions but actually does work. That’s the conversation happening in every tech company in the world right now. On DevFest day, Harare gets to have that conversation on its own terms, with speakers from across the continent who are building it for African realities.

The day is going to be seriously packed. It is expected to run from 08:00 to 16:00 with six sessions from Google Developer Experts coming in from Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia and South Africa, five local speakers, a talk from  and a group discussion to close it out. So with that being said here’s what I’m really excited for.

• The Google talk. Allela from Google Southern Africa opens the day at 09:10. I want to hear what Google is actually planning for developers in this region, and Zimbabwe in particular.
• AI agents for African SMEs. James Mwai from Kenya is showing how small businesses can put agents to work using Google’s ADK. This is the talk I think business owners in Harare need to see. And I think there are a lot of questions needing answers for this one. Is it affordable for SMEs to actually do this? Do these agents truly bring value or they are just over hyped, etc
• USSD and voice workflows. Umar Faruq Zubairu from Nigeria is talking about USSD and voice, the technology that still reaches people without smartphones, which i think is quite useful in Zim.
• Third World Solutions for Third World Problems. Simon Muzariri’s title alone needs no further explanations. And as I had stated before most of the solutions being built in Silicon Valley are usually for the U.S. So basically we need to take things into our own hands. 
• The group discussion. This one gives the audience the chance to lay down their opinions, ask questions and get answers. And I think this is a much more efficient way of learning and gives the chance to understand what you are being taught.

So what is my take on all of this? Well I have built apps and software myself so I’m looking at this agenda as someone who ships things, not just as someone who covers events. What excites me most is that this lineup isn’t copying Silicon Valley. Look at the topics: AI for SMEs, cutting cloud costs by running AI in the browser, USSD for people without smartphones, solving Third World problems with Third World solutions. These are talks about building for the continent we actually live on, where data is expensive, power is unreliable and most customers are small businesses.

I also think the timing matters. AI agents are moving fast, and there is a real risk that Africa ends up only consuming tools built elsewhere. A day like this is how we avoid that. When a student in Harare watches someone from Lusaka or Nairobi show a working agent, building one doesn’t feel like an impossible thing all of a sudden.

As a media partner, I’ll be there from setup to the group photo. Expect live stories through the day, interviews with the organisers and speakers, a highlight reel, and a full vlog of the day from my point of view.

If you’re a developer, a student, a founder or just curious about where AI is heading in Zimbabwe, come through. And if you can’t make it, follow along. I’ll bring the day to you.

See you at DevFest Harare.

October 24, 2026 , Harare Institute Of Technology, Harare

The post DevFest Harare 2026: Zimbabwe Steps Into the Agentic Era appeared first on Techzim.

We had written about the app before, so we contacted Ray to find out what has changed, how the business is doing and what the app looks like today.

What MaDeals is

MaDeals shows you buyers, sellers and service providers near you on a live map. You can buy and sell products, hire someone for a job, run an auction or exchange items (might try the last one).

There is also a request feature. Rather than scrolling through listings looking for something, you post what you need and nearby sellers send you offers. It sounds like InDrive for goods and services in that regard.

Then there is MaDeals AI. You can type something like “cheapest plumber near me”, and it searches the available listings and recommends options.

According to Melusi, the app has more than 30,000 registered users, around 4,000 products and 1,000 services listed. He also says interest is coming from South Africa as well.

The numbers behind the numbers

Ray told us that around 4,000 people use MaDeals each month. That is roughly 13% of the people who have signed up. He also says about 25 deals are completed every day across purchases, services, auctions and barter combined. That works out to around 750 deals a month if the daily figure holds.

And I wanted to know a little more about what those numbers look like in practice. How many of those sellers are actually making sales? Are buyers coming back, or are they trying the app once and forgetting about it?

Melusi said that building an active marketplace has been one of the biggest challenges so far.

Why it won

This is the part I found most interesting. Ray says the judges liked that MaDeals deliberately includes the informal sector, particularly vendors and small traders, rather than focusing only on registered businesses.

Many vendors who used to operate in the CBD have been pushed out and have struggled to find customers. MaDeals gives them another way to list their products and be found by people looking to buy.

There is something else worth noting about the award. Despite the category’s focus on financial inclusion and smart postal services, MaDeals does not yet handle payments or deliveries within the app.

Buyers and sellers arrange both themselves, and the startup has no courier partnerships yet. Ray says in-app payments are coming and that the team is negotiating with a bank to make them possible.

How it makes money

Listing and buying on MaDeals are free. Sellers can pay to promote their listings, starting at US$1 a day. Ray says more than 100 sellers have paid for promotions so far.

The startup also plans to introduce seller subscriptions, paid verification and small transaction fees later on.

What about scams?

Ray says MaDeals verifies sellers using a council trading licence and national ID. More than 20 sellers have gone through the process so far. Users can also report suspicious activity in the app, and the team can suspend accounts that break the rules.

The app’s store listing says it also warns users when someone asks them to pay before collecting an item.

Ray advises users to check reviews and, where possible, collect and pay for items in person.

The verification process is still at an early stage, though. With more than 30,000 registered users, just over 20 verified sellers is a relatively small number. We also do not know how many scam reports the team has received or how it has dealt with them.

The prize money

The US$7,000 has not been paid out yet, according to Ray. He says there are no conditions attached by the Ministry, and the plan is to put the money towards technology improvements and user growth.

It will be interesting to see what the team does with it, particularly given the challenges Ray described around getting people to use the app regularly.

Why not just use Facebook or WhatsApp?

This was our obvious question. Zimbabweans already buy and sell through Facebook Marketplace, WhatsApp groups and personal networks. Why would someone download another app to do something they can already do?

Ray’s argument is that Facebook and WhatsApp are global platforms, while MaDeals is built around what is near you. He also points to auctions, barter and service requests, which bring several ways of buying and selling together in one place.

Where things stand

MaDeals is running and looks promising. A year from now, Ray wants MaDeals to be the go-to platform for buying, selling and finding services in Zimbabwe’s major towns. We will be checking back.

Have you tried MaDeals? Did you find what you were looking for, or did you end up back on WhatsApp groups or Facebook Marketplace? Let us know in the comments.

The post MaDeals wins $7,000 at the Innovation Expo: what’s behind the startup, future plans? appeared first on Techzim.

Here is how to make a video call on Econet using airtime, with no data or WhatsApp

Three things have to be in place:

1. Econet on both sides. It only works when you call another Econet number.
2. An Android phone. It didn’t work on the iPhones we tested.
3. VoLTE switched on, on both phones.

So how do you switch on VoLTE

1. Open Settings on your phone.
2. Go to Mobile networks. On Samsung phones it’s Settings → Connections → Mobile networks.
3. Turn on VoLTE calls (some phones call it “4G calling” or “Enhanced 4G LTE mode”).

Menu names differ a little between phone brands. If you can’t find it, search “VoLTE” in your settings.

Now after setting up everything this is how you can make the video call

1. Open your normal Phone app.
2. Dial the Econet number you want to call.
3. Tap the video call button, or start a voice call and switch to video once it connects.

That’s it. No app or data needed.

Why it’s useful
Only the caller pays. The person you’re calling doesn’t need airtime or data to answer, and both of you can be offline. Which is a different story On WhatsApp, both of you need data.
It works when your bundle runs out. If you have airtime but no data, you can still see the person you’re calling.
It’s easy for people who don’t use apps. Parents and grandparents can answer it like any normal call.

How much does it cost?

Econet hasn’t published a rate for VoLTE video calls yet. In Kenya, Safaricom charges video calls at the same rate as a normal voice call. If Econet does the same, it would cost about 4 cents a minute, the current Econet-to-Econet voice rate. That would be cheaper than a WhatsApp video call on a daily bundle, which works out to roughly 6 cents a minute because WhatsApp video uses about 10MB a minute. On a big monthly bundle, WhatsApp can be cheaper though.

Tip: check your airtime balance, make a one-minute video call, and check again. That will tell you the real cost on your line.

The limitations
Econet only. You can’t video call NetOne or Telecel numbers this way. Those networks would first need to launch VoLTE and agree with Econet to connect their systems.
No iPhones. Apple doesn’t support this type of network video calling on any network, including in Kenya where Safaricom has offered it since 2021.
You need 4G. If your phone drops to 3G, the video call won’t connect.

Now go try it yourself and tell us what you think in the comments!

The post No Data? No Problem: How to Make Video Calls on Econet Using Airtime appeared first on Techzim.

For recap’s sake, Medical Information Service (MIS) is a Zimbabwean WhatsApp-based health platform founded by Dr Dudzai Mureyi. It helps people find medicine easily and compare costs across different pharmacies. That’s valuable if you ask me, especially in a country where advertising isn’t allowed in the pharmaceutical industry.

Although we only wrote about it in 2021, MIS actually started in 2015, so it has been running for a while now. In that time, it has been through some battles, as you’d expect for any business that has been around that long. What sets it apart from other startups, though, is that it has fought court cases against government bodies.

Entering a heavily regulated field with a new innovation almost guarantees legal problems. So, of course, the Health Professions Authority of Zimbabwe and the Pharmacists Council of Zimbabwe took MIS to court in 2017 and 2018. They argued that MIS had broken the rule that prevents pharmacies from advertising their medicine. Fortunately, MIS won. Twice. And it kept operating. It’s unusual, and quite impressive, for a small, newly launched startup to take on two government bodies and come out on top. Fast forward to today, and MIS is still running.

So what has changed since then? First things first, MIS has changed how people search for medicine on its platform. For most of its existence, the process was manual. A person would type in what they wanted, and the request would be sent to pharmacy staff, who would then reply with what they had in stock and at what price. As you can see, it was a bit of work.

In the first quarter of this year, MIS automated the process. It now has a WhatsApp bot, which you can find on its website. Everything is automated from start to finish: you answer a series of questions, and the results come back to you from its databases. The WhatsApp integration is a smart move, and I think more Zim startups should follow suit. Why? People of all ages and backgrounds are familiar with WhatsApp, and people who can’t afford WiFi can usually afford a WhatsApp bundle.

The service itself is simple to use. You send a WhatsApp message to the bot with the name of the medicine you need (or just a photo of your prescription) plus the area you’re in. MIS then checks with its network of pharmacies, which report back on what they have in stock and what it costs. You quickly get a list of pharmacies and prices. It costs nothing to use beyond your WhatsApp data, and it can even tell you which of those pharmacies accept your medical aid.

For all the talk about medicine, that isn’t all MIS offers. In fact, I was quite shocked at how many types of service providers it has under its belt. These include ambulances, police, dentists, lab tests and 24-hour emergency rooms. So it’s not just about medicine, it offers quite a lot.

While we’re on providers, the other thing that has changed is traction. Back in 2021, MIS had about 200 pharmacies. When we spoke to her, Dr Mureyi confirmed that it has grown to 416 providers in total (individual pharmacies plus other providers such as ambulances) across 32 provider types. On top of that, the bot has handled 1,566 queries since it launched in the first quarter of this year. So it’s safe to say MIS has grown.

As for the business model, Dr Mureyi wouldn’t disclose much. Since patients use it for free, the money probably comes from the providers. Either way, it’s safe to say money is coming in one way or another.

MIS fought legal battles and had to learn firsthand what it takes to run a business like theirs in a country like Zim. That work arguably opened the door for competitors like Cloomi, Kumbacare and MCAZ, who I’d like to think have had a much smoother ride. They run a similar model, and they use WhatsApp too. Imitation is flattery, I guess.

MCAZ is the bigger and more notable competitor. It’s the government body that decides which medicines are allowed in the country, and it has now adopted Dr Mureyi’s idea and built its own national medicine price platform. In a report, MCAZ even cited her legal victory as the reason it’s allowed to do so. Dr Mureyi, however, has no affiliation with the organisation.

With all that said, MIS has been at it for a long time, so there’s a good chance it will keep going. Whatever the future holds, it’s clear that MIS built something the market and the industry actually needed.

The post MIS: The Startup That’s Trying To Make It Easier To Find Medicine In Zim. appeared first on Techzim.

I have noticed this behaviour of mine even when it comes to supermarkets I go to, tuckshops I buy from or even the musika where I find myself buying vegetables. The idea behind it, at least from what I can understand, is that these people make it so easy to interact with them that the experience becomes about more than just what I am buying. 

We have heard similar stories countless times at Techzim Smartphones, and I thought it was worth writing about. Stories about our customers continuously buying from us because they love how we work with them through the process of getting a new phone and how much of a genuine interaction we have with them in the process. How someone who just thought of trying this new phone retailer can find themselves having an interesting conversation about technology and life in general until they have to convince themselves to leave.

In the process, we have made countless friends and return customers. We have had pilots come in for smartphones, army officers, executives, hustlers, students and everyone else with hope for a better future. But beyond all these titles and differences, they are just people. And people love beautiful interactions with other people. 

I think what makes this much easier is why we sell smartphones. Limbikani always talks about why our smartphone business was to make smartphone buying in Zimbabwe risk-free. He says that our business was never made to be a once-off transaction and never will be. It is the start of a relationship between Techzim and our customer. 

If you have ever interacted with him, he usually says, “This is the start of the relationship with you, your family and everyone who you interact with because when you go out there”. There is always a story you have beyond just the smartphone, smartwatch, tablet or anything like that.

I still think this can be implemented in every other business you might have and is very important when your business is starting. You might not beat a big company on size or price, but you can beat them on how people feel when dealing with you.

What do you think?

The post Did Customer Experience Slowly Become the Biggest Thing Any Business Can Sell? appeared first on Techzim.

A document issued by the Embassy of the Republic of Zimbabwe in London, dated 28 September 2026, provides a typical example. The embassy’s own notice for its consular outreach programme lists consularzimlondon@yahoo.co.uk as one of its official contact addresses. The embassy’s current website also publicly lists both zimlondon@yahoo.co.uk and consularzimlondon@yahoo.co.uk, alongside its government address, zimlondon@isp.gov.zw

Why is a sovereign state using a free Yahoo Mail account for official diplomatic and consular communication?

I am not suggesting that the mere use of Yahoo proves that a foreign government is reading Zimbabwe’s emails. That would be an allegation requiring evidence. But it is precisely the kind of unnecessary third-party dependency that a government dealing with sensitive diplomatic, consular and potentially national-security information should be examining.

Yahoo’s own privacy documentation says that Yahoo systems may analyse and store communications content, including incoming and outgoing email. Yahoo also states that information can be transferred, processed and stored in countries other than the user’s own, including the United States and that it may be required to disclose personal data in response to lawful requests from public authorities.

The issue is not whether Yahoo is a reputable company. It is whether the Government of Zimbabwe should be placing official diplomatic correspondence on a consumer email platform when it has the ability to operate controlled government email infrastructure.

There is an even greater irony here. Zimbabwe frequently speaks about sovereignty, national security and the strategic threat posed by foreign powers. Yet cybersecurity sovereignty is not achieved by making speeches. It is achieved by controlling your infrastructure, your identities, your communications and your data.

A government embassy should have properly managed government email addresses, strong authentication, encryption where appropriate, centralised security monitoring, retention policies, access controls, audit trails and clearly defined data-residency and incident-response arrangements.

Diplomatic communication should not depend on a free email address. And this is not simply an issue for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Ministry responsible for ICT and the country’s cybersecurity authorities should be asking how many other government departments, diplomatic missions, parastatals and public institutions are conducting official business through Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook.com or other uncontrolled consumer accounts.

If the answer is significant, then Zimbabwe has a much bigger cybersecurity governance problem than one embassy email address.

Government communications should be brought under a properly secured national government email and communications architecture.

We cannot demand digital sovereignty while outsourcing parts of our official communications infrastructure to consumer platforms.

Zimbabwe is a sovereign state. Its official communications should look and operate like the communications of a sovereign state.

This is precisely why cybersecurity professionals must sometimes be uncomfortable. If we see the vulnerability, we must say so before someone exploits it.

The Embassy’s current website also confirms the Yahoo addresses cited above and also lists its government email address, so the issue can and should be addressed transparently by the relevant authorities.

Engineer Jacob Kudzayi Mutisi
+263772278161

The post Zimbabwe’s Embassy Has a Cybersecurity Problem Hiding in Plain Sight appeared first on Techzim.

She said this on X in reply to Willard Shoko, the independent Starlink researcher who has been pushing for a ground station since before Starlink was licensed here. He has tagged the Minister, the Starlink team, and anyone who would listen, again and again.

“There is no policy nor directive preventing Starlink from setting up a ground station in Zimbabwe,” the Minister wrote, adding that government will monitor progress and play a facilitating role.

According to POTRAZ’s latest sector report, Starlink carried 197.78 Petabytes of data in Q1 2026. Shoko points out that’s about 2PB a day, more than Econet, NetOne and Telecel combined (179.33 PB). Starlink did this with about 86,000 subscriptions. The mobile networks have 13.5 million.

By our calculations from the POTRAZ figures, Starlink carried almost a quarter of all internet traffic in Zimbabwe in Q1 2026, and 31.85% of fixed internet traffic. Spread over the quarter, that’s an average of about 200 Gbps, around the clock. For comparison, the report puts TelOne’s entire equipped international capacity at 245 Gbps. Starlink traffic grew 17.58% in the quarter. If that pace holds, Zimbabwean Starlink users will pass 1 Exabyte this year, as Willard has forecast.

All of that traffic currently leaves through ground stations in other countries.

Why does a ground station matter?

So your Starlink dish talks to a satellite, and the satellite passes your traffic down to a ground station connected to fibre and the internet. Zimbabwe doesn’t have one, so our traffic travels to ground stations elsewhere in neighbouring countries first. It’s a longer trip that adds latency, the bit of lag you feel on video calls and in games.

To pass traffic down quicker Starlink satellites need a ground station within range. When there’s none nearby, newer satellites relay traffic between each other using lasers to reach a station further away. Older satellites without lasers can’t do this effectively reducing their effectiveness when they are over Zimbabwe. So a ground station in Zimbabwe would let more of the satellites passing overhead serve local users directly, adding capacity and cutting latency.

A local Point of Presence (PoP) would go further. It would keep local traffic inside Zimbabwe, allow peering with local ISPs, and make it possible to cache content like YouTube and Netflix locally. That is, as a Starlink customer your YouTube video would actually be sourced from a local server at Liquid, TelOne or Dandemutande, making your internet experience much faster.

What about Harare?

Harare and Bulawayo sold out within weeks of Starlink’s September 2024 launch. The “sold out” label came off in February, but residential customers still only get offered expensive Priority plans or a waiting list.

A ground station will help, but it won’t solve this alone. Harare’s problem is mostly too many users in one small area for the satellites overhead to serve.

Yes, bringing older satellites into play adds some capacity, but the bigger relief will come from Starlink’s new V3 satellites, which each have about ten times the capacity of the previous generation. A ground station and V3 satellites together could finally open Harare to ordinary residential customers.

The post Starlink Ground Station Coming to Zimbabwe in Early 2027, Says ICT Minister appeared first on Techzim.

The Ministry of Youth, working with the UN Youth Group (chaired by UNFPA), has opened applications for the Zimbabwe Youth Innovation HackLab 2026. It’s tied to the National Youth Empowerment Strategy 2026 to 2030. The problem areas to be worked on were agreed on at a workshop back in July by government, UN agencies and civil society.

There are three categories. The first is youth health and well-being, covering things like health financing, service delivery gaps and digital access to health information. The second is economic empowerment, which is about skills mismatches, getting into formal employment and support for entrepreneurs. The third is green jobs and climate resilience, including access to green opportunities, finance and technology.

The winner in each category gets a USD 5,000 seed grant. They also get business development support, pitch coaching and some national and regional visibility.

You don’t need a finished product. A concept, an early prototype or an early pilot all qualify. What the judges want is an idea that responds to a real problem and goes after its root cause. Fully operational businesses aren’t eligible unless they’re pivoting to tackle a root cause in a materially different way.

You can apply alone, but teams of 2 to 5 are strongly encouraged. Every member has to be 18 to 35 and ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe. Teams that are at least 40% female get priority. You can only enter one category, so choose carefully. Being a student, an employee or tied to an NGO or company is fine, as long as your institution doesn’t own the idea.

The application form asks for a problem and solution summary of up to 500 words and an innovation description of up to 800 words. You’ll also need to explain the root cause you’re targeting, give a 12-month implementation plan and a budget estimate, and write a short note on how the idea touches SRHR, gender equity or disability inclusion. It’s worth drafting all of that before you open the form.

Here’s the timeline. Applications close on 20 October at 23:59 CAT. Finalists will be notified and briefed on 23 and 24 October. Pitching happens on 4 and 5 November in Harare at the National Youth Symposium, and the winners are announced there too.

Apply here: https://forms.gle/qXG6oVCC87Dq82TR9

If you know someone with an idea like this, send it to them.

The post Got an idea for one of Zimbabwe’s big problems? There’s $5,000 on the table appeared first on Techzim.

What began as a tool for turning EcoCash statements into useful data soon became something much bigger. Mutingwende realised that while the idea was technically interesting, it wasn’t necessarily a business.

“I told myself truthfully, it’s a cool idea, but no one will pay for this,” he says.

That realisation pushed him to think beyond graphs and transaction analysis and ask a more important question: *What problem would people actually pay him to solve?*

The answer eventually became ZimLedger, an all-in-one financial management platform designed around the needs of small businesses in Zimbabwe.

Today, the platform has more than 10 000 Google Play installs and a sign-up base of more than 10 000 users. Customers who want the full service pay $5 a month after a seven-day trial.

For Menard, however, the numbers are only part of the story. The bigger lesson is about building technology that solves a real problem and building a business around it.

Finding the gap

Menard says much of the existing accounting software is geared towards larger companies that can afford accountants.

Small businesses often need the same basic financial information but don’t necessarily have the resources or expertise to produce it.

ZimLedger brings several functions into one platform: business and customer ledgers, financial statements, payroll, quotations, invoices and personal finance tools.

The idea is particularly relevant in an environment where business and personal finances can often overlap.

Rather than requiring a small business owner to use separate applications for payroll, invoices, customer accounts and financial tracking, ZimLedger attempts to put those functions under one roof.

From an idea to a product

ZimLedger launched in August 2025 as a website and APK before eventually making its way onto Google Play.

The product has also evolved largely through customer feedback.

Users asked for features such as customer ledgers and team accounts, including different permissions for different employees. Menard says those requests influenced the direction of the product after launch.

And unlike many subscription businesses where payments are automatically deducted from a card, ZimLedger customers generally have to make their monthly payments manually through EcoCash.

For him, that makes the decision to subscribe particularly significant.

If someone chooses to pay every month, the product has to keep delivering enough value for them to make that decision again.

What many devs overlook

For Menard, one of the biggest lessons from ZimLedger is that technology alone doesn’t make a business.

“First, solve a problem,” he says. But solving the problem isn’t enough. Founders also need to ask whether there are people willing to consistently pay for the solution.

He also challenges the idea that launching an app is enough to attract customers.

“You build something, you launch it, and it doesn’t go viral the way it happens in the movies,” he says.

Marketing, he says, has to be treated as part of building the business. ZimLedger has used paid advertising as well as content marketing, including a WhatsApp channel that has grown to around 10 000 followers by sharing business and personal finance content.

Building for the business, not just the technology

Menard’s own background has helped shape that approach.

He has a master’s degree in financial engineering and previously ran StartupBiz Zimbabwe, an online business that has been publishing since 2015. That experience exposed him to another important distinction: once-off revenue versus recurring revenue.

It is one reason he favours the subscription model for ZimLedger.

But perhaps the most interesting part of his journey is where it began.

The first version wasn’t a grand fintech vision. It was simply an idea for analysing EcoCash transactions.

The turning point was recognising that *a technically impressive product isn’t necessarily a commercially viable one*.

As Menard puts it:

“No one will pay for nice graphs.”

For Zimbabwe’s growing community of developers and tech entrepreneurs, that may be the more important lesson behind ZimLedger.

The post Menard Mutingwende on Building ZimLedger, Finding Paying Customers and the Business of Tech appeared first on Techzim.

The Chairperson of the African Union
The African Union Commission

Heads of State and Government of the African Union Member States

Your Excellencies,

I write to you as a former Chairman of the Zimbabwe Information and Communication Technologies (ZICT) a division of the Zimbabwe Institution of Engineers (ZIE), with many years of experience advocating for greater awareness of cybersecurity and information technology issues across Africa. Over the years, I have published numerous papers and articles on the growing threat of cyberattacks and cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and I have also organised and held cybersecurity conferences and awareness initiatives aimed at bringing together stakeholders to discuss the growing risks facing our digital society.

I have consistently warned that Africa cannot afford to underestimate the consequences of cyber threats or remain overly dependent on technologies and digital infrastructure developed outside the continent.

Today, I believe we have reached another critical moment. Artificial Intelligence Has Changed the Threat Landscape. The rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) introduces an entirely new dimension to cybersecurity and national security. Warnings from individuals working at the forefront of AI research including concerns that sufficiently advanced AI could potentially pose an existential threat to humanity should be taken seriously.

Whether the most extreme predictions ultimately materialise or not, one fact is already clear: AI has the potential to dramatically increase the speed, scale and sophistication of cyber threats. Africa is therefore more vulnerable than ever before.

Many African countries continue to face challenges including limited cybersecurity investment, shortages of highly skilled cybersecurity professionals, inadequate digital infrastructure, insufficient protection of sensitive data and dependence on foreign technology platforms.

The AI dimension could amplify these vulnerabilities considerably. Africa Cannot Afford to Wait. Our continent must not treat AI simply as another technological development. AI is becoming a strategic capability with implications for national security, defence, banking, healthcare, elections, energy, telecommunications, agriculture, education and critical national infrastructure. A sophisticated adversary equipped with advanced AI could potentially identify vulnerabilities, automate attacks and operate at a speed and scale that traditional cybersecurity teams may struggle to counter.

Africa therefore needs a coordinated continental response. We cannot continue relying solely on individual countries attempting to defend themselves in isolation. Africa Must Develop Technological Sovereignty.

Your Excellencies, Africa must also confront a fundamental strategic question: Who owns the technology upon which Africa’s future will depend? If African countries remain primarily consumers of AI technologies developed elsewhere, we risk repeating a familiar pattern in which Africa provides data and markets while intellectual property, infrastructure and much of the economic value remain outside the continent.

Africa must become a creator, developer, owner and responsible regulator of AI technology. We need greater investment in African AI research, computing infrastructure, cybersecurity capabilities, data centres, digital skills and African-owned technology companies. Our universities must be empowered to train the next generation of African AI scientists, engineers and cybersecurity specialists.

A Continental AI and Cybersecurity Strategy

I call upon the African Union to consider establishing or strengthening a continent-wide initiative focused specifically on the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity and national security.

Such an initiative could include:

• A continental AI and cybersecurity threat-monitoring centre.
• Greater intelligence sharing between African states.
• Joint cyber-defence exercises.
• Protection standards for critical national infrastructure.
• Continental AI safety and governance standards.
• Investment in African-owned AI and cybersecurity technologies.
• Training programmes for African cybersecurity professionals.
• Stronger protection of African government and citizen data.
• Cooperation between African universities, governments and technology companies.
• Emergency mechanisms for responding collectively to major cyber incidents.

This is ultimately not simply a technology issue. It is about protecting Africa’s people and Africa’s future. Africa’s Black and Arab populations, together with all of the continent’s diverse communities, deserve to enter the AI era with security, dignity and technological sovereignty.

We cannot allow Africa to become one of the easiest regions to destabilise because we failed to invest sufficiently in protecting our digital infrastructure. At the same time, we must not allow fear of AI to prevent Africa from embracing its enormous potential. Africa must embrace AI but Africa must also understand, control and protect itself from its risks.

Your Excellencies, I have spent years raising awareness about cyberattacks and cybersecurity threats. Through published articles, cybersecurity conferences and other awareness initiatives, I have consistently sought to draw attention to the risks facing our increasingly connected societies. The emergence of increasingly powerful AI makes those warnings more urgent.

The question before Africa is no longer whether AI will affect our continent. It will. The question is whether we will be prepared.

History has repeatedly demonstrated the consequences of technological dependence. We now have an opportunity to ensure that the next technological revolution is different.

Africa must invest. Africa must collaborate. Africa must develop its own expertise.
Africa must protect its data. Africa must strengthen its cybersecurity. And Africa must have a seat at the table where the future of Artificial Intelligence is being decided.

I respectfully urge the African Union and every African Head of State and Government to treat the AI and cybersecurity threat as a matter of continental strategic importance and to begin an urgent dialogue on how Africa can protect its people, economies, infrastructure and sovereignty.

The continent should not wait for a catastrophic cyberattack or an AI-related crisis before taking action.

The time to prepare is now not after the crisis.

Yours faithfully,

Engineer Jacob Kudzayi Mutisi

The post An Open Letter to African Leaders on Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Digital Sovereignty and the Protection of Africa’s Future appeared first on Techzim.

It’s available on iOS and Android, and even has a web version. Normally when you hear “online card game,” you think of Blackjack, Klondike, or FreeCell. These are games that confused most of us, with rules nobody ever properly explained. Speaking for myself, I still don’t know how any of those are played. Fortunately, Tendai has given us one we already know and actually enjoy.

Don’t get me wrong, Makasa Cards isn’t the first  to do this. As a matter of fact the card game that we play has been played exactly the same or almost similarly by many people from all over the globe. In fact it is a variation of Crazy Eight which originated in the US and has since been adopted and changed to the game we play now. 

Within Zimbabwe itself, I haven’t yet seen any app competing in the space Makasa is. In the region there is some competition, Apps like Matatu, Kadi Saba and Kadi, built by developers in Kenya and Uganda, which offer similar games to Makasa.

The concept of bringing local iconic games came off as interesting to me so I decided to take my time to see how the game works. The whole mission was to check whether the game was just another vibecoded AI slop or something that really does work.

Makasa has a number of play modes. There’s standard online matches against other human players. There’s a campaign mode that takes you through story-driven levels, an Offline mode for practicing against the computer, and daily Challenges that hand out rewards for logging in and completing goals.

Maka also has tournaments. The site says you can “climb the ranks and win big prizes” playing a dedicated Weekend Tournament. We haven’t played this one yet so nothing to share on it. Makasa has made it clear, however, that there’s no gambling involved. 

Business model wise, right now it’s free to play the games. There are some Google adverts that show in the app. But given their current numbers, this return from that is likely very low. So it’s not clear what funds the “big prizes” you get for winning competitions. Maybe in the future a new subscription model will be introduced to the game.

There’s also a lighter social layer. You earn an in-game currency called $MD as you play, which goes toward unlocking cards for your Collection. You can add friends, see who’s online, and challenge them directly. If you have played chess on chess.com you’re probably familiar with this already.

On the numbers, Makasa is still quite small. The site puts it at over 1,200 players already competing, Google Play lists it north of 1,000 downloads with 269 reviews and a 4.7-star rating. The app was last updated just days ago, so Tendai is still actively building on it, rather than having walked away after launch like many of us devs & vibercoders.

Quite interesting to see someone working on something outside the usual Marketplace apps, CV-writing ones, InDrive for X apps, food delivery apps, and literal InDrive clones.

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Econet CEO, Douglas Mboweni, said in a release we received today:

“Our plan is to shut down 3G first, by the end of December 2027. Only a small proportion of our customers remain on 3G, as most are now using 4G and 5G. We are encouraging those still on the older technology to migrate to the higher-speed technologies.

We must give rural customers more time to replace their phones while supporting them with affordable handsets and flexible payment terms. We will first upgrade network coverage and then help customers in rural communities migrate to 4G as the minimum standard. That work is already underway.

Econet says it plans to pour hundreds of millions into more 4G and 5G infrastructure.

According to its announcement today, maintaining several generations of mobile technology simultaneously puts pressure on spectrum allocation (what mobile operators buy for tens of millions from government, to be able to operate a mobile network). It’s expensive because it’s a limited resource. Econet says freeing up some of this spectrum allows it to use it for 4G and 5G services.

The latest Zimbabwe telecoms sector performance report by the sector’s regulator shows Econet has more 3G base stations than 4G ones. Here’s the breakdown of its base stations by technology:

• 2G – 2,981
• 3G – 2,071
• 4G – 1,951
• 5G – 353

It seems 3G still does some heavy lifting on the Econet network. In fact, 74 more 3G base stations were added between last December and March this year. So it’s surprising the company says “only a small proportion of its customers are on 3G.”

Whatever the case, Econet needs enough 4G coverage to replace whatever those 2,071 3G base stations currently provide. Which maybe explains those hundreds of millions Econet says it needs to spend.

Econet isn’t unusually early. Rwanda is targeting June 2027 for its 3G shutdown, while South Africa has set the same December 2027 deadline as Econet.

Customers with 3G-only smartphones will be affected by this 3G shutdown. December 2027 is still some 15 months away and the big unknown is how many Econet subscribers will still be using 3G-only devices by then. If that number remains significant as the deadline approaches, the company will face the difficult task of getting those customers onto 4G devices or reconsidering the deadline.

Complicating this further is that Econet’s move comes when, globally, prices of smartphones have skyrocketed owing to an AI-driven RAM crisis. It’s so bad it’s being called the “RAMageddon“.

It’s estimated the crisis will persist, and might actually get worse, for another year or so as the AI demand grows. What this means is that many will not be able to upgrade their devices.

To be clear, it’s not necessarily that these 3G-only phones will stop working come January 2028. Econet says 2G will remain for longer, so compatible phones should still be able to fall back to 2G. For internet access though, 2G’s so slow it might as well not be there for the average user’s needs.

Econet also said in its release that it’s stepping up its fight against “grey handsets.” Econet says they now have the capability to detect such smartphones and that when they connect to the network, they’ll alert the customer and also let authorities know, “to help curb the practice.”

The term “grey handset” usually means genuine phones imported through unofficial channels or intended for another regional market (in Zimbabwe’s case usually Asia and the Middle East). Econet, however, appears to be using it differently here. It describes grey handsets as devices sold as smartphones but which don’t actually meet their advertised specs, essentially the questionable or outright fake smartphones that are fairly common on the local market. You can check out a video we did of a fake iPhone 17 Pro Max, earlier this year. These fake iPhones are really just bottom of the barrel Android phones, pretending to be what they’re not.

If you’re buying a smartphone between now and December 2027, it’d be really unwise to buy one that doesn’t support 4G. Econet commands about 75% of Zimbabwe’s mobile subscriptions, and in 15 months it intends to make 4G the minimum viable standard for decent mobile data on its network.

You can read the full release here.

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But $2 a year makes you stop to check something out. To try it out and see if it delivers as advertised. It did. Runtime registered our new domain and got it working for the price of a kombi trip to the CBD. Well a round trip…

It’s exciting because it makes it easier for anyone to get started with something online with their own web app.

Runtime.co.zw was started recently by Ngaavongwe Ndasowampange who has already been providing web and app development hosting in Zimbabwe for a while on Ngaatec. He told us is drawing on the experience he’s had from that work with customers who need services to establish themselves online.

He said in response to some questions we sent him: “I wanted to experiment with a different approach. Make the entry point extremely simple and affordable, then build useful infrastructure and developer tools around it. That’s where Runtime came from. You should be able to have an idea today, get a domain and start building.”

AI vibe coding tools have made starting something extremely simple and low cost. Even on a free tier you can explain your idea to these tools and have them create something of a rough version 1 of your app. Something to help you test if it’s worth pursuing further. Being able to get a domain easily to start with, can’t hurt.

We tested Runtime with the registration of a domain, and the process, save for a few hiccups with ZISPA requirements (turns out you can’t register a one letter domain) went smoothly.

The one thing they definitely need to improve on is the EcoCash payment process which is still manual; that is you do a money send, then send proof of payment to Runtime. This part feels like we’re back in 2013. It’s more of a headsup for you reading this. Personally, for a $2 domain, it’s a bother, not a pain 🙂

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According reports, the student, Sabelo Malunga, did attachment at CABS, and apparently exploited the access gained during his time there to install SUPREMO, a remote access software that then enabled his access after he had left. He apparently downloaded SUPREMO onto a CABS machine in January this year while still on attachment.

After his attachment ended (on 23 February), he could access the CABS systems and he used that access to plant malware tools that would create fraudulent Visa and ZIPIT transactions.

The Visa transactions were international ATM transactions linked to CABS-issued debit cards for $210,500 and they were discovered on 27 March. The transactions were flagged by Visa but the money had already been lost.

The bank’s IT team discovered the malware on 13 April and an internal reconciliation uncovered the ZIPIT transactions, some 1,911 of them, used to transfer US $925,679 to EcoCash, InnBucks, CBZ and Ecobank. This amount was also not recovered.

From the dates, it looks like the student had access for an estimated 4+ weeks.

There’s no mention about whether the transactions would siphon money from other bank customer accounts or a different pool of money within the bank’s system. There’s also no mention of how CABS’s endpoint cyber-security tools did not catch this remote access earlier.

According to the report, CABS used the services of a South African digital forensics company to “contain and eradicate the malware and investigate the breach.”

The student has not yet been asked to plead and was remanded in custody until Thursday. This means all these are just allegations for now.

The remote access software used in the attack, SUPREMO, is a legitimate tool similar to TeamViewer, AnyDesk, or Chrome Remote Desktop. However, while SUPREMO has built-in security measures and encryption, it has been exploited by hackers and scammers for unauthorized access to victims’ computers. The feature usually used is a feature where it can configured to start at system boot, allowing unattended remote access.

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That is impressive early traction, especially for a new Zimbabwean app.

EcoCash has supported the push with a referral programme that rewards both the referrer and the referred user. It is also migrating customers from the old EcoCash app to the new platform.

Those moves suggest that the SuperApp is strategically important to the company. But downloads alone do not tell us whether the bet is paying off.
Many people may have downloaded it simply to continue making EcoCash transactions.

The real test, and what EcoCash is likely weatching, is whether they are using the features that actually make it a SuperApp; the Chat, the Explore social feed.

Both features have really strong existing competition in Zimbabwe from Meta. Chat is dominated by WhatsApp and the social feeds are dominated by Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and increasingly WhatsApp Channels. Competing for attention with these platforms will be super hard.

EcoCash can spend to incentivise installation, but can it build a new daily habit? Are Chat and Explore useful enough to justify the investment?

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Said Mboweni in a release to the media:

“We recently discovered that more than a million handsets had been configured at the wrong speed, preventing customers from properly accessing services such as TikTok and YouTube or watching short videos without buffering. With AI, we can now identify the affected handsets. We will in fact soon advise customers on how to change their settings or invite them to visit our shops for assistance.”

Mboweni called this a “breakthrough”, which just says how much of an impact it has on the company. Customers having connectivity problems on their devices is not a good thing for Econet. Customers happily consuming data means more revenue for Econet. Doesn’t make business sense for the company to invest in the latest network infrastructure (5G and 4G) only for this capacity to not be used. This could unlock internet bandwidth use and revenue growth, essentially sweating its investment in infrastructure.

The company also said it’s implementing some 20 artificial intelligence initiatives to improve business operations and customer experience.

This likely refers to internal deployments under the main company itself and not necessarily new products under the new AI focused subsidiary, Econet AI. Products like EcoAI Tokens. Or it could be both network stuff and new products given today’s press release mentions the 100 AI engineers recruited for Econet AI that was first mentioned last month.

Econet also mentioned two other breakthroughs: the ability to trace network faults in minutes rather than hours or days, and instantly diagnosing phone problems (even when customers aren’t aware an issue exists).

The company has said it’s investing significantly in AI. Mboweni said today “We now have access to AI capabilities at a scale unmatched in Africa, supported by our own cloud infrastructure, which is being deployed right now, as we speak.” The company separately announced this week that it has moved its entire digital operation to Google Cloud Platform, suggesting where this infrastructure footprint is being built.

Definitely interesting times. I’m not clear yet how everything is connected. Where Econet Infrastructure starts and ends. Where Google infrastructure starts and ends. What of Liquid Intelligent Technologies with its Microsoft bias in cloud platforms? And where Econet InfraCo fits in all this.

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Every year a fresh crop of Zimbabwean tech startups launches mostly with a post on X, LinkedIn and Facebook. They get a bunch of likes and comments, the team behind the startup gets excited. The founder is convinced that they are the one that breaks the pattern. Eighteen months later the startup is nowhere to be seen.The collapse isn’t dramatic or sudden but it’s slow and quiet. The website suddenly stops getting updated and the social media accounts go silent.

A quick look at your phone’s homepage can show you how exactly bad it looks. Most of us barely have any local apps on our phones. The only ones we usually have are backed by already big companies like Econet and Simbisa. With the exception of your friend’s vibecoded app you have in the name of support of course.

It’s not that Zimbabweans lack good ideas or technical skill.Startup Blink Report ranked Zimbabwe 117th out of roughly 118 countries surveyed in 2025, with only a couple of dozen startups tracked in the entire country. Highlighting how startup growth in Zimbabwe is stunted.

There are plenty of reasons that cause these frustrating failures of startups and for the most part it’s not just limited to Zimbabwe only. Most African startups run into the same wall. But a few of these problems hit Zimbabwe especially hard. 

First off there are no real investors looking to fund promising local startups. Ask most of Zimbabwean founders where the venture capital is and you’ll get a confused look. Most of the ideas that these startups are trying to build need real money to run, not LinkedIn comments. Company registration, actually building the product, cloud hosting, developer salaries, data bundles, marketing, and the diesel to keep servers running through load shedding all cost money nobody’s handing out. 

Sadly the money is very hard to get. Most startups end up quietly leaving the scene after realizing that they had heavily underestimated the operating costs. Especially at the early stages when little to no revenue is coming in.

At the same time looking for global venture capital is almost a dead end. Only a handful of African startups have managed to do that. Most of the money flows to American and Chinese startups. And the rest goes to European startups. So at the end of the day Zimbabwean startups are left to figure out everything on their own with barely anything in their bank accounts

The other reason why the tech space in Zim feels underwhelming right now is also because the talent leaves as fast as it’s trained . The same skills that would make someone a strong technical co-founder here make them an easy remote hire for a company overseas. Every developer who leaves is also a potential mentor, angel investor, or second-time founder who won’t be recycling their experience back into the local ecosystem the way it happens naturally in more established hubs. 

The regulatory side doesn’t do founders any favors either. Registering and running a company here comes with more paperwork and cost than it probably should. There’s also no Startup Act or anything like it, no framework offering young companies breaks on tax, IP protection or licensing the way countries like Tunisia and Senegal have already set up for theirs. 

Founders also share the blame when it comes to their failures. Most founders fall in love with the code, get too technical and underperform on the business side of their startups. Most forget to ask themselves a simple question before they start,” does anyone really need what we are creating?”. Or at least they simply lie to themselves.

There’s also a copy-paste culture where the fifth ride-hailing app or e-commerce clone launches with basically nothing separating it from the four before it. The Zim tech space is saturated with the same apps that do the same things. Sometimes a small research is all it takes to avoid getting into an already saturated market.

Even when a product is genuinely good, getting people to actually use it is its own fight. Zimbabweans already have trust issues, from scams and e-commerce experiences that promised convenience and couldn’t deliver, and that kind of skepticism doesn’t disappear just because a new app has a nicer interface. 

With all that being said Zimbabwean startup founders still have a lot to learn. However some of the hiccups they face are out of their control and only direct interference from the government in the form of policy, funding, or a regulatory environment that actually works might be of help. Even though there have been some policies like National ICT Policy 2022–2027 , POTRAZ ICT Innovation Drive Fund and National ICT Innovation Fund.  Most of them have turned out to be empty promises that don’t yield much result.

I have no doubt whatsoever that a new wave of Zimbabwean tech startups that grow into genuine industry giants is coming. It’s just a matter of when, not if. 

The post Why Your Phone Has Barely Any Local Apps: The Zimbabwean Startup Problem appeared first on Techzim.

As Techzim, we sell smartphones to our community and are seeing this first hand. We retailed the Samsung Galaxy A07 with 128GB storage and 4GB RAM at $110 around March this year. It has been going up gradually and this week that phone is now $160! It’s crazy. It brings back the hyperinflation trauma for most of us.

It’s happening at such a scale globally that people are now referring to this crisis as “RAMmageddon.”

The situation is so bad that RAM has become the most expensive component in a smartphone.

We would like to answer what we can in this article and make recommendations. If you have any questions, please do ask in the comments so we address them.

Why are smartphones prices going up so drastically? What’s going on?

So, there’s a global RAM shortage right now. it actually started at the end of last year. The effects had not reached us but now we are getting hit too.

What’s causing this RAM Shortage?

The crisis hasd been caused by the sudden growth and need for more AI infrascturture. RAM is an important component in the chips needed for AI so companies like Google, Amazon, Meta (Facebook, WhatsApp), Microsoft, Oracle are buying a lot of them for their data centres.
These companies are generally called Hyperscalers.

And there is not even enough for them so the demand is increasing. When demand is high and supply is low, prices increase.

There are just a few companies that make RAM chips globally. These companies supply everyone (phone makers, laptop makers, these Hyperscalers)

Is there profiteering going on as well?

It’s hard to say, but likely. Situations like these create opportunities for some companies to want to profiteer by raising prices above and beyond.

Some manufacturers of these RAM were sued for taking advantage of the supply shortage by price-fixing. taking advantage doesn’t just happen at manufacturer level, even distributors can do this. It is possible they are doing it at global, regional and even local country level.

When will the prices stabilise?

It will take a long time. At least a year from now. Likely more.

The few companies that make RAM have already started expanding so that they can make even more RAM chips, but this process takes years. It’s said it takes at least 2 years to bring up a new RAM factory.

What’s our advice then?

If you’re planning to buy a new phone or laptop (especially entry level ones), don’t assume the price you have seen in a shop will be the same price about a week or month later. The prices may be higher.

If you have some cash and want to buy a phone or laptop, wherever you buy, buy right away and don’t wait.

If you plan to upgrade your laptop with additional RAM, do it right away. Waiting for the prices to stabilise means you will wait a long time.

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MaDeals works as a location-based marketplace where sellers post whatever they have, from second-hand goods to services. It is basically a C2C platform where anyone can decide to sell or buy at any given time. MaDeals makes it so that buyers browse a live map to see what’s available near them, rather than scrolling through a generic feed.

You chat directly with the seller inside the app, agree on a price, and arrange to meet and pay with hard cash or using EcoCash which is supported on the app. 

What Madeals is trying to solve isn’t new. A lot of startups have tried the same thing both locally and internationally. The  more recognisable competitors being Facebook Marketplace which runs the same consumer to consumer model and has a much bigger audience. OfferUp is also part of the competitors and is the one MaDeals resembles the most with its live map feature. 

They have quite grown their user base thanks to their good marketing strategies. There is a variety of goods and services being offered across the platform and some people claim to have actually sold their goods on the platform which is a good sign.

As for the local market, while a huge chunk of it is still held by Facebook Marketplace and Whatsapp Groups, Classifieds.co.zw  is a clear dominant platform in the market offering a huge amount of goods and services. Other platforms that are in the same market include Buyorsell, Zimexapp, EasyBuy, theDirectory and of course the Econet fumble Ownai.

As you can see the market is saturated and a lot of these platforms fight for crumbs left by the Facebook Marketplace, Whatsapp Groups and Classifields. Most of these marketplace platforms came in and then disappeared without a trace. In fact in 2021 we covered Marketsquare which looked promising at the time but hasn’t really grown much since then.

One of the reasons why most of these C2C apps don’t take off is trust. On a C2C platform anyone can post their products and for newer apps there is no telling if they are legit or not. So scamming can be common among these marketplace apps so people try to stay far away from them as possible.

Even  Facebook Marketplace follows the same C2C model. A person can go check the seller’s profile and look at comments and decide whether they are legit or not.

MaDeals can achieve what others could not. That is if they maximise on Ray Vines’ popularity. For the most part that is what has gotten them this far. The marketing effort they are putting is  also impressive and is something that most of the failed marketplace startups simply could not do.

Their application is somewhat easy to use but the live map feature can be confusing at times. The bloopers showing the sellers location can be saturated at one place especially in the CBD and it gets hard to see who is who.

As for their business model, posting a service or good is free. The same goes for buying and requesting services. However the App Store listing shows in-app purchases ranging from small donation tiers up to $69.99. And promotional packages that let sellers pay to boost a listing for anywhere from a day to a month, priced between $9.99 and $49.99. 

Their business model can become tricky as people’s donations don’t tend to be enough to keep a business running. And promotional packages are easily ignored by people, especially in Zim.

Whether people take to Madeals probably comes down to trust more than features. Zimbabweans already have Facebook Marketplace, WhatsApp groups and Classifields for buying and selling locally. But having a known face like Ray Vines at the front could work in Madeals’ favour in a way a random new app never gets. But sadly a popular face can only get you so far.

 At the end of the day, people are going to prioritize quality and convenience. The Madeals team has a tough battle ahead of them. Only time will tell if they follow the marketplace app trend, or carve their own path.

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You can read about Econet AI the company on the website dedicated to it here econetai.co.zw. I’ve been confused about the strategy and direction of this new company (too many B2B products where I assumed Econet would leverage its B2C strengths but that’s a story for another day) so it was quite pleasant to see them introduce a consumer product.

This week, the company introduced ecoAI Token, an AI aggregator.

You use it to chat with the top AI models: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Mistral. It’s not free. You use your airtime or EcoCash to pay for tokens.

Econet AI is selling tokens like Econet the network sells data bundles: 10 cents a day, 70 cents a week, $3 a month.

The onboarding to start using ecoAI is incredibly easy and straightforward. You enter your Econet number, you receive an OTP and you’re in! The company already has your information from the network side. In fact it’s so easy it made me uneasy.

Once you’re in, you select the package (bundle? I’ll use this bundle language for ease but it’s not their language) you want, confirm your EcoCash payment and you’re done. Their FAQ says eligible users can get a free tier, but doesn’t say how.

Once you’ve paid, you can chat with the AI models and use up your tokens. For example, I bought the 10 cents daily bundle and got 5000 tokens. I started what’s clearly an expensive conversation, comparing responses from the different AIs available, and my 5000 tokens were gone in 2 messages. So, wrong bundle for me.

When you run out, you can just top up with another AI bundle, just like data bundles.

If you use this frequently it will be clear how many tokens you need for your work. Can’t say right now if ecoAI is more expensive or cheaper than the competition. Actually I can. Without a free tier, it automatically costs more. Competing AI aggregators like Poe have a free tier.

But ecoAI is not just competing with other AI aggregators, there’s the frontier models themselves. Why would I use ecoAi when I can just use Gemini, Claude or ChatGPT directly? All the frontier models have free tiers, some of them offering unlimited text chats.

OpenAI, for example, now offers free users unlimited text chats with GPT-5.6 Luna, a model the company says produces 62% fewer factual errors than the GPT‑5.5 it replaces. Why would I buy the GPT 5.5 bundles that ecoAI is selling?

In addition, ecoAI doesn’t have the latest models. Their Claude only goes up to the 4.x versions, which is not the best. Why would I pay to access an older model when I can pay Anthropic directly to access the latest and more powerful ones like Fable 5 and Opus 5? Especially considering both Claude and ChatGPT let me fine-tune how much thinking the model does, a feature ecoAI just doesn’t have. Controlling this thinking effort impacts price, which would make using ChatGPT and Claude directly potentially cheaper.

So if ecoAI is not cheaper, then the utility is elsewhere? The quick switching between models? I’m already a heavy user of ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Switching between them is just a tab click away, so switching models is definitely not a problem.

If it’s not the model switching, then maybe the payments ease? Is the micro-payment the innovation here? While I can already pay for Claude using my EcoCash Virtual Mastercard I can’t pay for for just 10 cents of it’s brain. Maybe there are lots of Zimbabweans who will find paying 10 cents at a time is more practical than forking $20 at once? But aren’t these people catered for by the leading models’ free tiers? ChaptGPT has unlimited, Claude resets every few hours, and Poe resets every 24 hours, making the ecoAI’s daily bundle redundant.

Or I just don’t get it.

Or maybe they’re going zero rate this so Econet customers can use it without buying data bundles?

Anyway, ‘why use this’ aside, there’s the issue of the product experience itself. I loved the payment and ease of login. The presentation of the product could improve but it is usable and will improve. There has been some complaints that it’s vibe coded as if vibe coding, itself is a bad thing.

I think as long as the person prompting is taking care to create a great product, whether it’s vibe coded or not doesn’t matter. Unless the argument is there’s no way to produce a good vibe coded product. But anyone who says this clearly hasn’t been vibe coding, or is just a sour developer struggling to find themselves in these new times.

It’s a new product and I think it will improve. Right now, I personally have no need for it. Keen to hear the use cases you are seeing. Please do comment.

The post Econet launches ecoAI Token, taking the Data Bundles concept to AI appeared first on Techzim.

BantuBuzz calls itself “Africa’s premier creator-brand collaboration platform,” and behind it is Blessing Mokoena, a Zimbabwean entrepreneur. The idea is that creators from across multiple social media platforms, like X, TikTok and Instagram, can go on BantuBuzz and post their profiles, listing details like their follower count, how much they charge for a video promo, and what their niche is. Brands or people looking to collaborate can then pick whichever creator fits and work with them directly. 

As for their business model it seems as if they charge both brands and creators to be on their platform.For the brand pricing model the prices vary from $0 to $399.Your plan affects the number of active campaigns, active collaborations and team members you can have. 

The creator pricing model is more lenient. The plans start from $0 to $19, with limitations of how many “portfolio items” you can put, verified badge availability and priority search placement depending on the plan chosen.

This can be very helpful to creators when you realize that most people who get into content may not have the right information on how deals with brands are done. Let’s say a boy in Highfields starts making skits in his bedroom just for fun and he manages to get a significant number of followers from it. All of a sudden brands start reaching out. Even with a lousy offer he can end up making videos for said brand and ends up being taken advantage of without even noticing. 

Being a marketplace means BantuBuzz naturally helps both creators and brands discover prices and each can see where they fit. A creator can simply observe what other creators of the same follower count range charge . While brands can see how much a certain type of creator is likely to charge without having to overpay.

It also gives niche creators a real shot at being discovered by brands. Usually, it’s social media algorithms doing the work of surfacing creators to brands, and that algorithm tends to favor whoever’s already popular. Feeds are also tuned to the tastes of whoever is viewing making the discovery of niche creators. 

If you’re not showing up on people’s screens regularly, you barely get any offers, no matter how good your content actually is. 

This can work against, say, someone who just opened a small hospitality business and wants to promote it. They likely don’t know which creator, out of thousands, is actually the right fit to push their brand. A platform like BantuBuzz, where creators list their niche and rates upfront, at least gives that business owner a place to go looking.

As always I had to visit their site to see what exactly they had going on for them. They have a good number of creators which is more than 80, some with followers in the hundreds of thousands. These include creators from different platforms like Facebook, X, Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube. This can provide variety for early brands who are trying to test out the platform. Hopefully BantuBuzz can keep increasing their creators, especially the ones with huge follower numbers to attract big brands. 

The competition against BantuBuzz isn’t stiff, locally at least. In fact, my research shows that no one in Zimbabwe is doing quite what BantuBuzz does yet. But Bantu is not just targeting Zim. They are positioning themselves as the bridge between African content creators and brands.

On the continent, there is some competition. Kenyan platform Wowzi offers this and is already well ahead, having raised a few million dollars in funding and has worked with huge brands such as Netflix, Google and CocaCola. Even so, BantuBuzz still has an edge in the Zim market, since local brands are almost always going to look for local creators who resonate with their audience far better than an outsider would. Local might actually be their super power, as they plan to expand beyond. Indeed there are probably local brands looking to do regional promotions, as well as global brands that would love a single platform from which they can coordinate an Africa-wide campaign. 

BantuBuzz has quite some potential. Their main focus now must be towards bringing bigger and more recognisable names to the platform. The problem they are solving is real and hopefully they are the one of the Zimbabwean startups that can make it big.

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Rera is a Whatsapp-based follow through assistant by Timothy Sabelanga. So what it does is you make reminders for people on what you would normally forget, or get too busy to do. Rera can then follow up, coordinate with the right people and keep track. It only reaches out to you on matters that need your attention.

“The idea came from noticing how much of everyday life happens through chat, but how much work still remains with the person who started the conversation. You can message someone, “Remember to do this at 7,” but you still have to remember to check whether they did it. I started asking: What if you could hand that responsibility over and move on? That became Rera.” Timothy spoke about the inspiration behind Rera.

I took a look at their website and they managed to provide the platform’s use case in a very brief and specific way. Rera’s use case actually makes sense to me. Their site splits it into work, family, errands, friends and home. At work you can use it to chase a colleague who’s gone quiet on work supposed to be done. At home it’s the sibling who never does the one errand you asked for until you’ve reminded them four times. 

Rera can also be integrated with home devices that can be used on the internet. These include smart TVs, smart speakers and smart geysers. The home example they show on their site is my favourite though, telling it to make sure the geyser switches off at 10.

As far as my research goes, Rera is the only platform doing this specific thing in Zimbabwe. Of course there’s WappGPT, Siri and Alexa which are somewhat in the similar space. They all have reminder features but it’s how far they go which differentiates them from Rera. While Siri and Alexa may allow you to set reminders for people, they simply do not go out of their way to follow up.

As for WappGPT they fall short on one specific thing that makes Rera what it is. On WappGPT you set reminders for yourself and then the assistant starts to remind you until you do that thing. However, Rera allows you to set reminders for other people. Let’s say you want to remind your coworker to do a certain task you just tell Rera and just like that your coworker won’t rest until they do what they are supposed to.

I tried Rera out to experience its services firsthand. I was able to set a reminder for my younger sister to do her studies at 6pm. The bot was easy to use and by just sending my request as a text like i would to a friend the reminder was set. She even complained about its persistence afterwards.

As for their business model Timothy assured that currently Rera is being opened for free so they can actually see what people would use it for in the real world. However the longer-term model is going to be subscription based.” The basic experience can remain very easy to try, while more advanced capabilities around ongoing follow-up, coordination, integrations and higher usage can become paid features. I don’t want to force a business model before we understand what users value enough to pay for,” Timothy explained his plans for the business model.

Overall Rera can be of use on the day to day basis of people’s lives. The fact that they are WhatsApp based also helps keeping in mind that data prices in Zimbabwe can sometimes be expensive and as per a poll in our WhatsApp Channel a lot of people depend on WhatsApp for collaboration. It’s now up to Rera on how well they will perform in the unpredictable tech market of Zimbabwe.

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I remember last year when they officially launched, they had very attractive offers that were threatening to their competitors. These included a free starlink wifi access during your ride and a very generous discount system. A lot of people were going crazy over the platform and the marketing was just top-tier. I honestly thought it was game over for InDrive and it was time for them to pack it up. 

Now that some time has passed ,it  looks like InDrive is doing just fine and is still leading the market. 

My reasoning behind this is people have already familiarized themselves with InDrive since their launch in Zim back in March of 2023.This gave them an advantage of a 2 year headstart which helped them better understand the space and optimize their app to meet the needs of Zimbabwean customers.

 A poll in our community made it clear that the majority of people still rely on InDrive on a day to day basis with just a few showing their commitment to Tap&Go. Some even highlighted the fact that InDrive simply has better marketing compared to Tap&Go. Shockingly Bolt even had a comfortable vote lead against Tap&Go even though  Bolt’s presence and marketing at times may feel underwhelming.

Another reason that could also explain the slow start of Tap&Go is their different business model.Unlike their competitors Tap&Go operates more like a taxi company that has an app while other platforms focus more on connecting independent drivers with riders.This means Tap&Go own all of the cars their drivers use.  They officially launched with a total of 60 cars and meeting the high demands of transport with just 60 cars in the busiest city of the country can become very hard and make them look unreliable. Not to mention they also operate in Bulawayo. Meanwhile their competitors had already recruited a very large number of drivers without having to own a single car making it easier for them to meet a very high demand of transport.

A look inside their pricing model can also be explanatory to their current situation.Zimbabweans love negotiating the price down.Unfortunately, Tap&Go only has a fixed pricing model, so if you’re even 50 cents short of the price shown, it’s basically game over . This also affects the drivers who at times may think that the ride must cost a little more than the recommended price and may feel like they are being taken advantage of.

In all fairness Tap&Go falling short to platforms like InDrive and Bolt  can also be attributed to its competition’s very strong global reputation. In fact, according to InDrive on their own blog they reported that they were the second most downloaded ride hailing app globally from 2022 to 2026. To be honest it really takes some work to beat that.

So after all has been said and done just last week after the Kose billboard incident I did see about 2 of Tap & Go cars driving around. That’s still a lot less activity from them compared to what they are actually capable of achieving especially with the aggressive rise of the ride-hailing platforms over the recent years.So do you think Tap&Go still has a chance to claim the number 1 spot?

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The sweeping nature of the compliance requirements prompts us to question whether our current regulatory approach is the right one.

Data protection is not the problem

Few would disagree that personal data needs protection. So, Zimbabwe’s Cyber and Data Protection Act [Chapter 12:07]  was an important milestone. Enacted in 200, it introduced long overdue protections for personal information, established data subject rights and designated POTRAZ as the country’s Data Protection Authority.

However, the subsequent Cyber and Data Protection (Licensing of Data Controllers and Appointment of Data Protection Officers) Regulations, 2024 (SI 155 of 2024) went further to introduce mandatory licensing fees for data controllers and required many organisations to appoint Data Protection Officers (DPOs).

This brought significant recurring compliance costs making data protection a cost of doing business across the entire economy. This counters government’s recent efforts to reduce the cost of doing business in the country.

We borrowed from the GDPR—but not its philosophy

Zimbabwe’s legislation certainly draws inspiration from the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The terminology and concepts are familiar and both frameworks claim to adopt a risk-based approach. Yet, the implementation is vastly different!

The GDPR is fundamentally accountability-driven whereas Zimbabwe’s framework is primarily licensing-driven. Under the GDPR, organisations are not required to obtain permission from the regulator before processing personal data. Instead, they are expected to assess the risks created by their processing activities, implement safeguards that are proportionate to those risks, and demonstrate compliance if challenged.

The Zimbabwean regulation takes a different route. It requires organisations to obtain licences, pay annual fees and appoint Data Protection Officers before undertaking any processing activities.

Assumed risk not actual risk

The biggest difference is how Zim’s current framework interprets risk.

The GDPR deliberately avoids fixed numerical thresholds when determining whether processing presents significant risk. Instead, regulators consider several factors together:

• the nature of the data;
• the scale of processing;
• the purposes of processing;
• the context in which processing occurs; and
• the potential impact on individuals if something goes wrong.

In contrast, Zimbabwe’s licensing obligations are tied largely to prescribed categories and processing thresholds based on the number of data subjects. This results in organisations with very different risk profiles facing broadly similar compliance obligations.

One size for all regulation

Consider a small private medical practice. Its patient records are undoubtedly sensitive, but it serves a relatively small number of patients, has limited staff and operates within a constrained budget and pre-existing regulations. Under the current framework, that clinic is required to obtain a data controller licence and engage a Data Protection Officer. Whereas in the E.U it would not be required to do so

A school, a pharmacy, a local NGO and a growing software startup find themselves navigating comparable licensing requirements with a bank or insurance company despite having fundamentally different operational risks and financial capacity. The current data regulatory framework ignores that the scale, complexity and potential consequences of a data breach are vastly different even though they may handle the same number of data subjects.

The impact on startups

This has a negative bearing on Zimbabwe’s technology ecosystem.

For many startups, the first objective is to build a minimum viable product (MVP), validate a market and secure investment. Every additional regulatory obligation increases the cost and complexity of reaching that milestone. Under the current framework, a founder developing a healthcare app, educational platform or logistics solution needs to also budget for data controller licensing fees and DPO-related costs before engaging in any data collection or processing. Some founders have responded by obtaining DPO certification themselves simply to satisfy compliance requirements—an investment that can cost over US$1,250 before they have acquired a single customer. Large corporations can absorb these costs whereas early stage startups often cannot. When regulation creates significant upfront fixed costs, it unintentionally favours established incumbents over innovators.

Regulation should enable innovation, not discourage it

Zimbabwe’s recently launched National Artificial Intelligence Strategy (2026–2030) recognises that the country’s regulatory environment must evolve to make Zimbabwe “AI-ready.” It explicitly calls for achieving an appropriate balance between protecting personal data and enabling innovation. That balance is essential. As POTRAZ begins nationwide inspections, there may be no better time to revisit whether our data protection regulations are achieving that balance.

Good regulation should scale according to risk. A revised framework could retain strong protections for citizens while adopting a genuinely risk-based model. Regulatory obligations such as licensing or DPO appointments should reflect the nature, scope, context and purpose of processing rather than relying primarily on broad categories or numerical thresholds. This reduces unnecessary compliance costs for low-risk organisations while allowing regulators to focus on where the greatest risks actually exist.

Dr Marlon-Ralph Nyakabau

Medical Doctor, Digital Health Consultant, Public Policy Analyst

The post Why Our Data Protection Regulations Need Review appeared first on Techzim.

It usually went like this: he buys data using my phone and then sends it to his number to avoid Econet recovering the money and just like that he gets to use the bundle with no repercussions. This time around it didn’t go quite as planned. He bought the data as always but somehow it wasn’t working. 

Just as he was about to contact customer support, a text message from Econet popped out “Dear customer, just now you have reimbursed USD$0.20 Of Credit Loan, and left unpaid amount USD$0.40”. 

The voice bundle never reached his phone instead Econet took their 20cents and reminded him he had 40cents more left to pay. We quickly brushed it off until I came across a lot of videos and posts across social media talking about the same experience. 

From my research, Econet now doesn’t wait to take their money when you accidentally recharge airtime directly to your phone after forgetting your outstanding debt. Instead when your credit is due they simply wait for the next time you try to buy data bundles. It doesn’t matter if you do it from your friend’s phone or directly from Ecocash. Let’s say you buy a 20cents voice bundle on credit so you now owe Econet 40cents. The next time you try to buy a $1 Whatsapp bundle using Ecocash or another phone they will first take their 40 cents and inform you that you are left with 60cents and if you still want to buy your data bundle you will have to top up 40cents. The old tricks and techniques have been patched. 

Quite a number of our community members have had the same experience as my brother. In fact some have reported that at times Econet had taken more money than what was owed to them. To my knowledge it doesn’t look like Econet had informed its customers on their new airtime credit system beforehand. They are still yet to speak about it, with that being said all the conclusions I made are from testimonies across the web and our community.

People across social media  have different mixed opinions when it comes to the new credit system. With some even joking “Econet yakutora chero mari irikuseri kwepouch kana une chikwereti”. However one thing we can all agree on is, it’s just business.

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The most profound change now is rooted in Artificial intelligence, what makes it different is that the disruption is no longer limited to how we consume the art, but AI is increasingly sitting inside the creative process. AI isn’t basically a replacement for artists, it is mostly a collaborative tool, an instrument that can be used during creativity. We have already seen this happen locally. Zimbabwean creatives have already experimented with AI to come up with music, developing sounds and exploring ideas that previously required a lot of resources. 

Some AI collaborated pieces have even found their ways onto local radio playlists with listeners sometimes surprised to discover that what they were humming to be an AI collaborated piece of work. Of note is Ndakainamatira nyaya by Grace Wave and Kure Kure by Magic Wacho. The tracks have demonstrated how an AI assisted piece can find an audience and achieve significant traction.

One very popular application in creating music is Suno AI. The app is readily available on play store and is very easy to use. Once you install it you are prompted to create a free account so that you start creating stuff. You choose the type of voice you want it to use, type of melody and you can tweak on bass and other sounds that may interest you. You simply upload the lyrics, and, in a moment, you have a song which you can import to your memory if you are a premium user.   

An important aspect to take note of is that the tech is already here and people are listening, instead of the question being whether AI should be used in creative arts or not, perhaps we should be asking how we could use AI without losing human creativity, culture and identity that makes our music unique. Technology has never been the enemy of creativity.  

Technology will force an industry to adopt and become part of the ecosystem. AI will follow the same path, artists who understand it rather than simply resist it may ultimately have an advantage. The real challenge being whether AI is adopted early, creatively and intelligently enough to shape what comes next, and this is not only for the arts sector but other sectors as well like the farming sector and medical sector to mention a few.  

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Currently, Zim universities only recognise attachments (known as internships elsewhere) where students work on-site at their host companies. Some, like Bindura University of Science Education, allow students to do their attachment outside Zimbabwe, but in person, and the student has to foot the travel bill of the lecturer carrying out the assessment.

The way it works here is that the student’s university supervisor has to physically visit the workplace to assess the student’s work in person. Seems the issue with remote work is that universities don’t have the mechanisms to assess someone working for a US-based company from their living room in Mabvuku. It’s a policy thing really.

The problem with the current setup is that many students who fail to get on-site attachment end up having their studies delayed. And Zimbabwe doesn’t exactly have lots of employment opportunities at the moment. It’s a tough time to be a student.

Oliver says it doesn’t have to be this way. “The world is changing. The days when working for a company automatically meant being physically present at its premises are gone. Work can now be done from anywhere in the world. Industrial attachment policies in Zimbabwe’s colleges should match this reality.”

“The entire purpose of an internship is to prepare a student for the day-to-day realities of the work environment. If work has shifted from only being done on-site to also being done remotely, shouldn’t the learning experience reflect this?”

Oliver co-founded ZimWorX which we are told now “employs” some 1300 Zimbabweans. ZimWorX is structured as an Employer of Record for these Zimbabweans, which just means it connects them to remote jobs in the USA and UK and takes responsibility for things like processing salaries, and compliance with labour laws. In ZimWorX’s case, they also provide a place for these remote workers to work from (for reliable high speed internet, power etc…)

There are a few other companies like this locally, but ZimWorX looks like the largest. Typical roles people fill for ZimWorX clients include receptionists, executive assistants, accountants, paralegals, and marketers.

There are also many Zimbabweans working remote jobs they find directly on the internet, like graphic design, software engineering, and English language teaching.

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So PropertyZone is this Zimbabwean property listing platform built by a dev outfit called Sparkline Labs. It does the usual matching of property buyers and tenants with real estate agents with a bit of a twist. Neighbourhood reviews and, according to them, a tight handle on who gets to list a property. They also say they have designed the app so that agents get more qualified leads. They officially launched earlier this year in February.

PropertyZone are not alone in this market; they have to face established names like Property.co.zw, Propertybook and Property24

In their messages to us, one of the founders said about why they are working on the app: “Most listing sites here work the same way, they push as many inquiries as possible to the agent, regardless of fit. Over time agents get conditioned to a flood of low-quality inquiries from people who could have disqualified themselves before ever calling, if they’d had the right information upfront”

When you open the app, you can see how they are trying to do things differently, and honestly, it’s surprising the incumbents seem to have overlooked some of this. It’s clean, deliberately designed, and overall easy to navigate. The landing page makes it very clear that only EAC-registered (a governing body that oversees real estate practice)  agencies could sell properties, prohibiting unregistered individuals from doing the same. On competitor platforms, it appears individuals can post properties.

The standout neighbourhood review feature we mentioned earlier is called “Where to Live.” This section helps buyers decide which suburb best fits their needs. It consists of a suburb ranking system for each city, determined by ZESA stability, internet services available, road quality, traffic into CBD, amenities, water and such. Each suburb has reviews and comments from community members, giving buyers a clearer, more unbiased sense of the place. Buyers or tenants looking to relocate to a suburb can also ask the community questions about the place.

I even noticed that in the section there were about 2 reviews of the place I live, Highfields.  I could tell that the comments were somewhat authentic as they were very descriptive of the area in a human way and I could instantly recognise my home. This removed the skeptical thoughts I had about the reviews as I know it’s possible for someone to use AI generated text.

As useful as the Where To Live feature is, I could not help but notice some flaws with it. It’s a new platform yet to grow the number of reviews and that clearly affects the accuracy of the ranking systems. A score is a better reflection of reality when there are many reviews to aggregate. This becomes a problem especially when some places get few overly negative or generous reviews. 

The rest of the features are what you’d expect and get from other property listing sites per-listing legal data, including tenure type, title deed status, and zoning. They also provide per-listing utility data showing borehole/water reliability, solar setup, ZESA/grid reliability, and internet speed. But it feels PropZone is doing this on a deeper level than the incumbents though, which was definitely a plus in my books. This makes it much easier for buyers to rule out or prioritize properties. 

Propertyzone’s business model is built around agencies, not property seekers. Buyers or tenants use the platform for free while agencies have to pay to get their properties listed.This is basically the model that most of its competitors are using and from what I’ve seen it has worked perfectly so far. 

According to PropertyZone they have managed to attract 16 agencies and around 132 agents since their launch in February. You can feel there are still few agents when you browse around the site. The traditional big names (Seef, Knight Frank, Guest & Tanner, Pam Golding, Pocock etc…) aren’t listed there yet. However they have not disclosed the number of successful property deals or users they have had. 

In conclusion, PropertyZone claims they have introduced a safer, more convenient way for property seekers to buy or rent. However PropertyZone’s argument could  collapse the instant the features that differentiate them are adopted by their competitors. The real question is whether they’ll win over enough users first, or whether competitors will copy their features before PropertyZone gets the chance to grow. 

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KoopyKwacho, a web app created by Jimmy Chirinda is a platform that helps with the discovery of upcoming events by putting them in one place. Jimmy’s background in photography inspired the idea that came alive 2 years ago as an Instagram page and evolved to the website it  has become today. 

“As a photographer and content creator, I attend and cover many events across Zimbabwe. I noticed that people were constantly asking, “What’s happening this weekend?” or “Where can I find events?” Jimmy said about the inspiration.

I managed to visit the website and from what I could see the landing page of the website is clean and easy to navigate through with clear options but the bright colors used for the design can be a bit distracting.

Another interesting feature I noticed was their AI powered assistant which can be of great help. I managed to plan for an event with its help and most of the details and responses it gave me were spot on. The assistant is a strong feature if used well.

I could not help but notice that the number of events were low especially in places outside Harare, with some only having 1 event .This poses a bigger threat to their startup’s survival as users may become less likely to come back and of course in return event organisers and advertisers will not take the web-app seriously. 

KoopyKwacho also faces intense competition. In recent years, numerous Zimbabwean web apps offering similar services have entered the market, making it difficult for users to distinguish one platform from another. Despite this growing competition, many of these platforms have struggled to achieve sustained success.

According to Chirinda they gained1100 visits with 80 registered users within 10 days of their web app launch. They are aiming to catch the eyes of sponsors and advertisers for their revenue.

KoopyKwacho is a platform I can see myself using although there is still some polishing that could be done especially in the quantity and quality of events available. Their success will also be determined by how well they can manage to market the platform and gain users who still use the traditional ways of Instagram, Tiktok or word of mouth like myself. 

As the holidays near , the people’s  response to the website at the busiest time of the year will be a clear tell on whether the website sticks or is ignored like all the others.

The post Is this startup the answer to the unorganized advertisement of events? appeared first on Techzim.

In a lengthy post on X, the founder Tirivashe Mundondo lamented how the early days were marked by technical challenges, long working hours and a steep learning curve. The app now reflects the product the team originally set out to build.

What’s in the App?

Kose initially launched as a ride-hailing platform that allowed users to request rides, view fares upfront and negotiate directly with drivers. While this pricing model is already familiar in Zimbabwe through services such as inDrive it remains a key feature of Kose’s offering. All trips are GPS tracked and customers can pay in cash.

So what’s really different about Kose? Since launch, the platform has expanded in just 3 months to include Parcel deliveries, School transport, Food delivery, Grocery delivery, Pharmacy delivery, Booking skilled workers and tradespeople. It’s a very significant expansion in such a short time.

We’re yet to take Kose through the paces, and once we do, will do some posts. We’re really keen to check out the other non-delivery hailing aspects. Most of these are standalone startups by themselves and have been hard to crack locally.

How Drivers Get Paid

While the billboards are highly visible, Kose says its payment model is what truly differentiates the platform. Unlike most ride-hailing services that charge a commission on each trip, Kose
operates on a fixed weekly subscription model. Drivers retain 100% of their earnings and are able to view trip payments before accepting requests, giving them greater control over when and how they work.

To encourage adoption, the company is offering new drivers a 30-day free trial this month. If the model proves sustainable at scale, it could provide drivers with a meaningful alternative to traditional commission based systems. Remains to be seen if subscription revenue alone be sufficient to sustain and grow the business?

The Competition

Kose has entered an already competitive market, inDrive has operated its “name your price” model in most major cities and towns around Zimbabwe. Bolt has also been relatively aggressive. And there’s also TapnGo which is strangely not so visible now. Econet’s Vaya also operated aggressively in this market for years.

Kose is positioning is subscription payment model for drivers and several verticals ecosystem (being a super app) as key differentiators. Unlike the the competition who just target drivers and riders, Kose is also targeting small business including restaurants, retailers, pharmacies and service providers who can join via the Kose Merchant app.

The founder acknowledges that Kose cannot compete on advertising spend with larger incumbents, instead, the company is relying on word of mouth and local adoption, even as it runs one of the most visible billboard campaigns by a Zimbabwean startup we’ve seen.

For now, Harare is their starting point. They plan to expand to other cities before eventually entering regional markets (the Africa in their name). Whether its subscription model can support that growth remains the key question going forward. Download their app on the Google and Apple app stores, hail a ride and give us your honest review on the experience.

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