Andile Tshuma, Chronicle Reporter
Government is pushing for the country to become the digital hub of southern Africa by 2030 as part of the Transitional Stabilisation Programme to achieve Vision 2030. The Deputy Minister of Information and Communication Technologies, Postal and Courier Services Cde Jerifan Muswere said in line with the digitisation goals, the National Data Centre is nearing completion, with 95 percent of work having been done.
In his opening remarks at the Data Centre Africa Expo in Victoria Falls last week, the Deputy Minister said the National Data Centre, set up at the University of Zimbabwe was expected to start operations as soon as construction was completed.
“The Ministry of ICT, Postal and Courier Services’ vision is to have a connected knowledge-based society with secure information systems by 2030. This will help to make Zimbabwe the digital hub of southern Africa,” said Cde Muswere.
He said the country was making technological investments to achieve middle income status by 2030.
“Zimbabwe is undertaking sweeping changes to facilitate robust digital technology investments and innovation as the bedrock for economic transformation towards meeting the country’s middle-income goals by 2030.
“The rapid changes we see in technology development often make our application investment obsolete and sometimes redundant in a very short time span.
“These changes are coming with challenges as in any other industry in the world, the world has become more competitive; the economy has undeniable vulnerabilities and is in need of reinvention,” he said.
The Deputy Minister said data centres were under exposed in the media across the African continent and called for governments and corporate sector to support their amplification.
“In spite of their importance to the African economy, data centres are still underexposed in the media, politics, governments and society. We believe the data centre industry deserves a proper representation in these fields. That is why the Data Centre Africa was founded – the conference for data centres in Africa which will become a yearly event,” said Deputy Min Muswere.
“The Ministry intends to achieve this through three key result areas; an ICT enabling environment, ensuring ICT access and utilisation and working on ICT industry development.”
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