The Sunday Mail
Enacy Mapakame
Business Reporter
THREE winners of the Total Africa Start-Upper Challenge will soon launch their business ventures, thereby raising expectations that they will create employment and, with time, spread their wings to regional and international markets.
Mkhululi Ncube
The three young entrepreneurs – Mr Mukhululi Ncube, Mr Tawanda Chikosi and Ms Mercy Manyuchi – recently saw off competition from 250 other budding entrepreneurs, and were given a combined $35 000 to bankroll their respective business proposals.
Overall winner, Kwekwe-based Mr Ncube said his project – Can Do – is designed to ensure that horticultural farmers of Bomba village, which is 25 kilometres from Gokwe, get the maximum possible value from their produce, especially tomatoes.
The project involves establishing a tomato processing plant that will convert the vegetable into purees, sauces and dried tomatoes.
Boarding schools, clinics and hospitals in the vicinity will serve as a market for the business.
The 34-year-old entrepreneur said forecasts show that the undertaking has the potential to turn Bomba village into a horticultural hub for the Midlands Province.
“We want to go beyond tomato processing and expand into a fully-fledged agro-processing factory incorporating other vegetables and fruits such as mangoes that are in abundance in the area.
“The idea is to empower the people of Bomba, especially women. These sell their vegetable produce by the roadside, which usually goes to waste, but our project seeks to create a market for such.
“They can sell their produce to us and we will add value and sell. When we satisfy the local market, then we expand to other regions,” he said.
Can Do will be launched within the next two months.
Only locally manufactured machinery will be used in establishing the new plant to ensure that downstream industries along the value chain also benefit.
“We want to show the world that we can do things locally by coming up with a local brand supported by locally available resources,” he said.
However, Mr Chikosi’s project – Road Rules Solutions – has a bias towards technology.
It is a mobile phone application that pioneers innovation around road safety and makes drivers’ licenses more accessible.
The application helps young people acquire provisional driver’s licenses by providing study material and exam-situation exercises to enhance their understanding of road rules.
Mr Chikosi said this innovation will help young people, who sometimes have to sit for a provisional learner’s license countless times, save their hard-earned savings.
“For an unemployed young person, $60 is a lot of money to just go down the drain. We want a situation where a young person passes on a single sitting so that it does not become a financial burden,” said Mr Chikosi.
“Zimbabwe has a high literacy rate and it is ironic that people fail that test, the booklets being used are not optimised for learning and this is the gap that we are covering with this app,” he said.
The application tracks one’s progress and readiness for the test over a period of seven days.
Road Rules is still in its pilot phase but has already registered nearly 10 000 users so far.
The application is expected to launch by end of September when all the regulatory approvals are expected to be granted.
There are plans to extend Road Rules to other African countries such as Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria and Uganda.
Mr Chikosi said: “The problem is not unique to Zimbabwe, but across Africa.
“It is not because people are dull but a result of ill preparation, yet the continent is becoming highly motorised.
“We believe in using technology to solve problems.
“ICT is fast growing in the region and we want to tap into this to improve young people’s lives.”
Ms Manyuchi, whose project – InstiBriquettes – provides a charcoal replacement made from farm waste that can power homes.
Charcoal briquettes from waste biomass, which are believed to be smokeless, have a higher heating value than wood.
Almost all the projects that benefitted from Total Africa Start-Upper Challenge did not have financial backing to come to life.
Before officially launching their projects, Total Zimbabwe is providing mentorship services to the winners to inculcate financial discipline and business acumen.
