Ndarama High impresses at Africa company competition
MASVINGO’S Ndarama High School would represent Zimbabwe and the African continent at the Dela Vega Global Entrepreneurship Awards in February next year after winning a grand prize at the just-ended 2023 Junior Achievement Africa Company of the Year Competition held in Kigali, Rwanda last week.
In a Press statement, Junior Achievement (JA) Zimbabwe said Ndarama High was being honored in recognition for its ability to develop ‘Mobile Intelligence Technologies’, a software engineering social enterprise that uses offline applications to enable students to carry out any physics, biology and chemistry experiment on a three-dimensional (3D) simulator.
The application also offers e-books and edutainment material, a mobile interaction hub, and a career guidance platform with 3D mock interviews, driving, and aviation lesson simulations.
Last year the country was represented by Maranatha Christian High School, which won regional and global awards, a sign that Zimbabwean youths can come up with solutions that help solve global challenges in this technology era.
Maranatha Christian High School has developed an innovative learning application to beat the effects of Covid-19 on learning.
“Winning the competition two years in a row shows that Zimbabwean youth are capable of competing at the highest level,” said JAZ executive director Mr Allen Chinhanhu.
“I am confident that this year’s group is capable of matching last year’s performance at the Ralph De La Vega Global Entrepreneurship Awards.
“Maranatha Christian School made history by becoming the first African student company to win the coveted global award.”
This year’s competition ran under the theme: “Breaking Barriers” and brought together 10 student companies from Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, ESwatini, Mauritius, Cote d’Ivoire, Zambia, Uganda, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.
Mobile Intelligence Technologies will represent Africa at the Ralph De La Vega Global Entrepreneurship Awards to be held in February 2024.
Mobile Intelligence Technologies chief executive officer Anesu Ruzive commented: “We set out to solve the global challenge that in the developing world science laboratories are scarce and usually insufficiently equipped.
“In the developed world where more resources are available, students are often disturbed by natural and man-made disasters such as pandemics and wars.
“Our application breaks socio-economic status, location, gender, race, disability and digital divide barriers since anyone can access it on an android mobile device or computer anywhere without data costs.”
Mobile Intelligence Technologies team consisted of chief executive officer, Anesu Ruzive, production director, Prosper Dzinavatonga, finance director, Tapiwa Chuma, and human resources director, Prince Marley Tarirana.
According to JA Zimbabwe, the team consisted of Form twos and threes between the age of 14 and 16.
JA Zimbabwe is a non-profit organisation with a mission to economically empower Zimbabwe’s youth by bridging the gap between classroom education and the world of work.
Their programmes focus on the core content areas of financial literacy, work readiness and entrepreneurship. They provide experiential learning opportunities for young people to prepare for their professional lives in the twenty-first century.
More than one million young people, both in-school and out-of-school, in urban, peri-urban, and rural communities have taken part in JA Zimbabwe programmes since its inception in 1999. — @SikhulekelaniM1.
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