The Institute has fast become Zimbabwe’s tech hub where the nation is now looking up to for the best technology engineers across various disciplines.
Among those HIT students who received special mention from the Minister included Kudzai A Chasinda a Software Engineering alumni, Tapiwanashe Matangira, Blessing Sibanda, and Tatenda Vhovha from the Computer Science department. These were the top exhibiters at the conference with their solutions wooing almost every delegate who passed through their stand.
Kudzai Chasinda developed a music platform called Chase Music Player. The music app was designed to offer free music to android devices which are currently running Android 4.0 or better. The application is very user friendly able to be used by all age groups and uniquely crafted to spice up your playlist.
Chase Music Player has a uniquely different playlist design from other traditional music players and packed with awesome features. Kudzai has now listed the music app on Google Play Store and available for free downloading. He went on to assure all Chase Music users that more features are being currently developed in a bid to make Chase the first choice for playing music across the globe.
Tapiwanashe Matangira developed computer programing solution coded in Shona called the Graphical Code Explorer. Tapiwanashe said this this program was designed to incorporate the Graphical Programming Interface (GPI) where programmers do not need to type words when programming. The GPI is annotated in vernacular which runs Shona as the currently programming language. This is something that has not been done before in the history of programming to have Shona as a coding language.
The Graphical Code Explorer has the ability to export the vernacular code to industrial grade source such as the current Java. Tapiwanashe also said the system has the ability to visualize code execution making it easier for programmers to layout their programing paths without too much complexities. Tapiwanashe is multi-talented developer who has managed to produce quite a number of e-solutions which will be covered every week on our #ZimStartups.
Blessing Sibanda and Tatenda Vhovha co-developed an educational system for kindergartens between the ages of 6-10 for all Windows users. The educational system has four (4) demo games designed to enrich the minds of youngsters when mastering different subject concepts.
What’s more exciting about this program is the edition of Mathematics as critical subject in the e-learning solution. The maths involves simple and critical addition, division, subtraction and multiplication mathematical problems.
On the biology and science concepts, the program incorporates a Visual learning setup with human structures that can be learned in Shona. The visual human structure also attaches a timed educational game based on high scoring system.
Speaking to both Blessing and Tatenda, the tech geniuses said the gaming industry is dominated by mostly violent games like wars, extreme racing and personal fights which are not necessarily providing educational content to young scholars. They then decided to put forward the idea of developing educational games that will instill the right scholastic thoughts in kindergartens as they grow.
The e-Tech Africa Conference ended with almost every high delegate and other chief technology players speaking high of what the Harare Institute of Technology is doing to produce the technocrats for our economy. We continue to hope that established enterprise will start working with these young men to help the complete digitization of industries.
A general survey in last years is showing us that HIT has become the leading technological university in Zimbabwe with most of its alumni now leading digitization programs across different sectors. It will be just a free food for thought to those high school seniors who are looking for universities to start eying HIT as their first choice if technology sings music in their minds.
We caught up with Mr Innocent Mapanga, one of the HIT lecturers who have been tirelessly pushing and naturing these young developers where he said “The journey has not been easy to get these young men to achieve what they exhibited today because their different business ideas needed continuous review so that they go into the market as mature business solutions”
Mr Mapanga went on to mention that the Vice Chancellor,Mr Quinton Kanhukamwe in his close working relationship with the Dean of School of Information Science & Technology, Mr T. Padenga in assembling the right arsenal needed to mentor these technocrats was starting to yield edible fruits. He added that Mr Padenga who heads the School of Information Science & Technology has done exceptionally well in coordinating efforts which see all students getting mentor-ship from lecturers who have an array of specific critical skills.
In his closing remarks on Friday night at a cocktail event hosted by the Ministry of ICT, Hon. Supa Mandiwanzira highlighted that it was high time the local industry starts working with these HIT developers to solve their challenges since it was much cheaper to craft in local systems rather hiring externally developed systems which come with abnormal costs.
The battle for relevance continues……..
Technomag