Techzim
Zimbabwe & African tech news, smartphones
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Latest posts
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Is the phone you’re buying stolen? GSM Zimbabwe launches a WhatsApp IMEI checker
If you’ve bought a phone in town recently, can you say for sure where it came from? Most of us can’t. That’s the gap GSM Zimbabwe is trying to close with a new WhatsApp bot that checks a phone’s IMEI and tells you what you’re really buying. The team gave me a few credits to […]…
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DevFest Harare 2026: Zimbabwe Steps Into the Agentic Era
We’ve all probably heard about the “agentic era” for some time now. It has been release after release of different forms of AI agents with new capabilities and specialties. But most of these are built for people in the U.S and other first world countries. I think it is important…
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MaDeals wins $7,000 at the Innovation Expo: what’s behind the startup, future plans?
MaDeals, the Zimbabwean marketplace app founded by Melusi Chiripowako, also known as Ray Vines, won $7,000 at the Innovation Expo & Conference 2026. We look at how the app works, its users, its challenges and what comes next. The post MaDeals wins $7,000 at the Innovation Expo:…
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No Data? No Problem: How to Make Video Calls on Econet Using Airtime
Good News! Econet’s VoLTE (Voice over LTE) has come with a bonus most people haven’t noticed: you can now make a video call straight from your phone’s normal dialer. And no you don’t need a data bundle, WiFi or WhatsApp. It’s a regular phone call, just with video. Here is how to…
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MIS: The Startup That’s Trying To Make It Easier To Find Medicine In Zim.
Back in 2021, we covered a startup on a mission to change the way we search for medicine. In Zim, it’s quite common for patients to go from pharmacy to pharmacy, prescription in hand, trying to find what they need. Medical Information Service, founded by Dr Dudzai Mureyi, set…
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Did Customer Experience Slowly Become the Biggest Thing Any Business Can Sell?
You might not beat a bigger business on price or size, but you can compete on how people feel when they deal with you. Customer experience may be one of the most valuable things any business can sell. The post Did Customer Experience Slowly Become the Biggest Thing Any Business…
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Zimbabwe’s Embassy Has a Cybersecurity Problem Hiding in Plain Sight
Whenever I see a serious cybersecurity lapse, I believe it must be called out. Cybersecurity is not a luxury, particularly when we are talking about a sovereign state, diplomatic missions and official government communications. A document issued by the Embassy of the Republic of…
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Starlink Ground Station Coming to Zimbabwe in Early 2027, Says ICT Minister
Zimbabwe is getting a Starlink ground station. ICT Minister Tatenda Mavetera says SpaceX has concluded an agreement with one of the local Starlink dealers to set one up in the first quarter of 2027. She said this on X in reply to Willard Shoko, the independent Starlink…
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Got an idea for one of Zimbabwe’s big problems? There’s $5,000 on the table
If you’re between 18 and 35 and you’ve been sitting on an idea that could fix something real in this country, this one is for you. The Ministry of Youth, working with the UN Youth Group (chaired by UNFPA), has opened applications for the Zimbabwe Youth Innovation HackLab 2026.…
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Menard Mutingwende on Building ZimLedger, Finding Paying Customers and the Business of Tech
ZimLedger started with a simple problem, Menard Mutingwende wanted an easier way to analyse his EcoCash transactions. What began as a tool for turning EcoCash statements into useful data soon became something much bigger. Mutingwende realised that while the idea was technically…
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An Open Letter to African Leaders on Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Digital Sovereignty and the Protection of Africa’s Future
The AI threat that Africa cannon ignore The Chairperson of the African UnionThe African Union Commission Heads of State and Government of the African Union Member States Your Excellencies, I write to you as a former Chairman of the Zimbabwe Information and Communication…
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Local Developer Turns Zimbabwe’s Favorite Card Game Into A Mobile App
If you give most Zimbabweans a deck of cards, the game they will instantly think of is MaCards or Makasa. The fast paced game that most of us grew up playing at school with fellow students or at home with a group of friends. For the most part we have only played that game…
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Econet to phase out 3G by end of 2027
Econet has said it’s planning to switch off 3G network by end of next year. The company says it will then gradually phase out 2G as it shifts its focus to faster 4G and 5G services. Econet CEO, Douglas Mboweni, said in a release we received today: “Our plan is to shut down 3G…
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Runtime Is Selling Local Domains For $2 A Year
This one was a bit of a surprise. We have been paying our provider $10 a year. It’s not that we didn’t know local domains could be cheaper. There are providers, offering them at half that. But $2 a year makes you stop to check something out. To try it out and see if it […] The…
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MSU Student Accused in US$1.1 Million CABS Cybertheft
In what is one of Zimbabwe’s largest reported financial cyber heists, a 24 year old Midlands State University student was brought before the courts for hacking and stealing US $1,136,179 from a local bank, CABS. According reports, the student, Sabelo Malunga, did attachment at…
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EcoCash is Winning The Download. Can It Win The Daily Habit?
The EcoCash SuperApp has crossed the 500K+ download milestone on Google Play, with a 4.3 rating from roughly 2,700 reviewers. That is impressive early traction, especially for a new Zimbabwean app. EcoCash has supported the push with a referral programme that rewards both the…
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Econet’s AI Deployment Finds 1 Million Customer Phones Throttled at Wrong Data Speed
Econet CEO, Douglas Mboweni has said the company recently discovered a lot of customers were using the internet at the wrong speed. The company credits the discovery to the deployment of AI on the network to help uncover issues customers are facing. Said Mboweni in a release to…
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Why Your Phone Has Barely Any Local Apps: The Zimbabwean Startup Problem
Over the past few weeks I’ve been digging into Zimbabwean startups. I came across all kinds of them, tackling problems across every field you can think of. What struck me was how little it seemed to matter how well designed, engineered, or marketed the product was. Most of these…
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Why smartphones prices are increasing so much
Most of you have noticed that the prices of smartphones and laptops have been going up. Especially the entry level ones. This is the case wherever you buy your devices from. As Techzim, we sell smartphones to our community and are seeing this first hand. We retailed the Samsung…
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MaDeals: another promising marketplace app. Success or bust?
After taking a long break from social media, viral comedy personality Melusi Chiripowako, better known as Ray Vines, came back to our screens reinvented. His new project isn’t a TikTok video but a marketplace app that has gained quite a bit of traction over the past few months.…