HIT spurs new tech renaissance

31 May, 2020 - 00:05 0 Views
HIT spurs new tech renaissance

The Sunday Mail

THE Harare Institute of Technology (HIT) and a local start-up — Matsimba — recently announced some ground-breaking technology a mobile phone application that allows users to report suspected Covid-19 cases and deaths. Dubbed CoronaAlert, the mobile application empowers health authorities to monitor all reported and confirmed cases in real-time. HIT director of technology transfer, licensing and commercialisation centre, Dr Talon Garikayi, had a chat with The Sunday Mail’s Harmony Agere. Dr Garikayi oversaw the development of the software, and has superintended over numerous technological breakthroughs at the institution, some of which have already been deployed in the country. Below, we reproduce excerpts of that conversation.

***

There are a lot of products that we are working on. We have already rolled out a number of them at commercial scale.

One such product is the Tap card solution which was launched in partnership with Zupco.  It currently covers Gweru, Bulawayo, Masvingo, Mutare, Harare and Chinhoyi.

Kariba, Hwange and Gwanda are next in line.

The card is currently in use in its first version where tap machines are held by conductors.

In the second phase, the machines are affixed on buses so that passengers just tap and go.

The system reduces reliance on ticket books.

Zupco spends more than half a million on ticket books alone. During this period of Covid-19, handling tickets could increase the spread of the virus.

Paper also comes with environmental concerns, so those are some of the issues we are trying to avoid.

The Tap card solution has been introduced to our new client, the Public Service Commission.

The same technology has been rolled out for toll gates through our partner NMB Bank as well as some fuel service stations such as Trek Petroleum.

We have also designed electrical transformers and have started selling to local clients.

So far our biggest client is Econet, which has procured 25 transformers, with 21 already delivered so far.

We managed to do all of that in 30 days.

We contract other SMEs to construct different parts following our designs so that we are only left with the main aspects, which are winding and assembly.

As such, other companies have now found work in what we have developed.

HIT is liaising with our partners in Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique.

I can say we have done well. We have installed (transformers) in Stoneridge, Madokero, Marondera, Hwange, Lupane and Odzi.

We are receiving good support from the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) as well in terms of procurement. It is one of our biggest clients. They are giving reference to a lot of people and we believe in the next three years we might be in the top three in terms of production capacity in Southern Africa.

HIT is targeting Zambia and Mozambique.

With Cyclone Idai destroying much of Mozambique’s infrastructure, we are getting business there and believe in the next three months, after lockdown, we will be starting to produce and deliver to Mozambique.

Our main disadvantage is that it can be difficult to get funding from banks, they need paperwork.

Since the universities’ first mandate is to educate, not to run businesses, it is difficult to get all those papers.

Our mandate, according to Education 5.0, is to formulate a tertiary education system that produces goods and services.

So there is a bit of confusion among academics on how best to go about this while not jeopardising the university’s primary mandate.

If you look at the broader perspective of the current Government, it is that industrialisation should be led by universities through outputs of the university.

So that brings about companies emanating from HIT such as Matsimba, and Instibytes, which has done very well in local Government database systems.

About 19 local authorities are running on this system, which was developed by our lecturers Engineer Magadza and Engineer Maposa, who are the directors of Instibytes.

Instibytes employs more than 10 students from HIT (while), Matsimba employs more than 15 students, 60 agents countrywide and more than 20 technicians.

We have another initiative where we are using LPG (liquid petroleum gas) to power vehicles.

We have done tests and everything went very well.

With this project, we have seen savings of about 40 percent and now we are looking at getting into the commercial phase of that venture.

The LPG start-up company is from a lecturer who is going to open installation garages countrywide and we have Industrial and Engineering students who will be working in those companies.

So, if we have more joint ventures between the institute, students and the lecturers, then it means more revenue coming into the institution.

The procedure to get a start-up is that the student comes with an idea which is then passed on to the innovation committee, which provides funding to incubate the idea.

The idea then goes to the innovation hub, where it is incubated for even up to two years. After the incubation, we submit our findings to the technovation committee, which is a combination of the board and senate.

Members in that committee then negotiate with the directors of the start-up to determine shareholding.

Share This:

Survey


We value your opinion! Take a moment to complete our survey

This will close in 20 seconds