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Robert Ndlovu
INFORMATION and communication technologies (ICTs) are and will continue to be a catalyst in advancing development.

The reason why this is so needs no magnifying glass. The power and potential of ICT in development emanates from its inherent ability to trivialise challenges imposed by both distance and time.

ICTs have made geographical distance irrelevant in the data sphere. An instant message sent by someone in Bulawayo will more or less be received at the same time by a recipient Tsholotsho, Murambinda, New York and Johannesburg. This is the power packed by the multi-broadcast nature of instant messages.

Locally we have see an exponential adoption of smart phones and broadband related technologies. This is a positive development. Naturally most users in Zimbabwe and even beyond are still in the adoption and acceptance phase of ICTs. Now in developed countries that started using ICTs decades ago, the effect of social media is different than that for Zimbabwe.

The reasons are obvious. People have adopted ICT, via social media platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many more.

Most of these users have not had the chance to get schooled in basic ICT principles or skills. For instance I have seen people do awesome stuff from their Samsung tablets but at the same time cannot use a word processor. That is the reality.

There is a knowledge gap that needs to be addressed and fulfilled. In the years gone by before social media was in town, online access was limited and mainly used to surf the web, send and receive files, e-mail, chatting and accessing blogs.

The reason is that the cost of owning a PC and signing up for an internet account was prohibitive. This has obviously changed as stated above with the smart phones and mobile broadband technologies boom. Good and bad. Read on.

The number of hours locals spend on social media competes for the world number one spot. A random survey carried out by some students who want to become coders produced interesting results. The average time most youths spent on WhatsApp was no less than 10 hours.

The unemployed adult spends even more hours – data bundles permitting. The matter is tricky for employed or self employed. Their challenge is balancing work and the urge to be posting or reading posts — mainly rumours and fake stories, which do not contribute much to their own development.

I know you have an excuse ready to shoot this down. What else do you expect people to do in this challenging economy where many people are not employed? Dang do we love excuses. And the other common excuse is — well everything is given to those in Harare? Internet access is universal.

You do not need approval from any government office anywhere in the world to download software to learn how to design a website.

The web does not care where you live. Convert some of those hours you spend reading posts online about Donald Trump, Fidel Castro, water crisis, and bond notes learning new skills in ICT — online.

There are access and infrastructure challenges that people face in their quest to go online. But the mobile penetration figures are an indication that this will be a problem of the past like any other new technology.

People in the remotest part of the country now have access to ICT a finger tip away from their handsets. This has affected a number of industries that have been stubborn and stagnant in their way of thinking like banks, media houses and even telecoms companies.

Information access and distribution can no longer be monopolised by a few.

Access to banking is now a finger tip away via mobile banking. It is with this in mind that I would like to challenge people from Bulawayo, the southern region and surrounding areas to take ICTs seriously. Recently there was a Google Development forum held in the capital.

This came to being after some youths in the city formed coding hubs where they share knowledge, experience and resources. This way they manage to mobilise resources for the event. You must realise that the present youth in 10 years will be doomed if they do not acquire these digital skills.
ICT innovation waits and begs no one. Ask any cellular company they will tell you how WhatsApp eroded their voice revenues. My point has been and still is, acquiring digital skills is easier than other skills like in other field like civil engineering, mining, farming, accounting and so forth.

Digital skills are universal. The reason is that most ICTs use what is called standard protocols, this means you can write a computer or mobile phone application in Gwanda upload it and it can be downloaded and used anywhere in the world — literally. Access to information is becoming trivial by the day.

Anyone anywhere can access and or learn anything.

During these challenging times bedeviled by HIV and Aids, corruption and unemployment people tend to lose hope and initiative. This is a time to take the path of least resistance, if you can.

ICT coding has less burdens and challenges. Kenya is one shining example where coding of software has reached dizzy heights and digital literacy is the buzz word even at primary schools.

Based on the amount of money Zimbabweans spend on air time annually as compiled by Potraz, excuses of lack of resources do not hold water.

The challenges that local people in the region face include but not limited to, lack of information and knowledge, lack of motivation, scarce mentors, depressing economic environment, lack of access to high speed data, lack of finance, “back seat” mentality among others. From my experience when people form groups in the form of cooperatives they can reduce the barrier of entry into software development. Let me put in another way.

When 20 unemployed youths somewhere in the city come together and form a coding group and each agree on a membership fee of $ 20 there will have 400 bond or US$. With that amount they can afford to pay for high speed fibre optic link for about $ 150 for up to 20Mbps. Yes. Do some reading I connect schools and companies and individuals daily. The balance $250 can be for rental purposes.

This is a good start for any project. The next step would be to ask someone in that industry to help you identify FREE online courses that you can pursue. These are self-paced do-it-yourself material. There are sponsors out there willing to help locals. But they will not fund people who want to sit on their hands as if waiting for NGO-funded maize handouts!

As we speak efforts have been made and a coding hub is being launched in January, 2017 in Bulawayo CBD.

A number of hurdles have been met and overcome. What makes this particular initiative unique is that it will specialise in cyber and mobile security over and above the core ICT skills.

In a space of four weeks I have witnessed four graduation ceremonies. Wonderful indeed. But 90 percent of these 7 000 or so graduands are unemployable because they have NO bankable skills.

Where are the jobs? ICT industry alone has 500 000 openings for coders. This is not a one week kind of training. If you are looking for something that you can finish in a month and you are employed after that — you reading the wrong article.

Hard skills are in high demand. Hackers, application developers, data mining experts, digital and mobile forensic analysts, crypto-analysts, data miners, video game developers, cloud computing architects and more. Learn to code and discover new possibilities.

The writer can be reached on [email protected] or +263 77 600 2605 (App & Voice)