Zimbabwe’s technological sector is set to improve in the next five years, significantly altering all spheres of life in the country, a foreign venture capital company has said.

The Minister of Technology, Nelson Chamisa, believes that the country is already on a technological revolution path. He said that since he assumed the ministry, a lot had been achieved, though he was not sure if he was the right person to make that analysis.

“A lot of things have been achieved. They are all over for everyone to see. An example are the phones, the network system were unbelievable troublesome. Things are now starting to work,” he said.

Broadhorn Capital venture capitalist has invested in two technology companies in the country. A venture capitalists raises capital, commonly known as risk capital, for a business and provides advisory services during the term of their investment.

The capital raised may be in the form of debt or equity and may be from private or public sources.

Venture capital is a type of private equity capital typically provided for early-stage, high-potential, growth companies in the interest of generating a return through an eventual realization event such as an Initial Public Offer (IPO) or trade sale of the company.

Broadhorn Capital is a venture development firm specializing in early-and seed- stage technology companies The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Broadhorn Capital, Brian Patrick Donaghy, has told the media that Zimbabwe has an educated, English-speaking work force and this is at a time when Africa is expanding its fiber-optic networks and other technology infrastructure.

“In five to ten years, Harare will be the next Bangalore,” he said.

Bangalore is India’s third most populous city that experienced growth and a rise in living standards because of technological advancement.

Minister Chamisa said one other achievement by his ministry include improving the penetration rate to 22 percent from 11 percent at the beginning of the year.

“Things are improving and will continue to improve especially in the Internet area,” he said.

He added there have been companies that introduced 3G network and that was an innovation on the country’s technological field. Mobile network giants, Econet Wireless, introduced 3G network in August last year.

3G network is a family of standards for mobile telecommunications including wide-area wireless voice telephone, video calls, and wireless data, all in a mobile environment.

3G allows simultaneous use of speech and data services and higher data rates enabling network operators to offer users a wider range of more advanced services while achieving greater network capacity through improved spectral efficiency.

by Mercy Mujuru