The Harare Institute of Technology (HIT) brought down the curtain on its most ambitious Technovation Expo yet, with the Honourable Ambassador Dr F.M. Shava, Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development, presiding as Guest of Honour at the Official Opening and Awards Ceremony held at the Innovation Hub.
Running under the theme “Designing an Assured Future,” the three-day Expo (28–30 July) transformed the Belvedere campus into what Vice Chancellor Professor Q.C. Kanhukamwe called “a theatre of ideas,” drawing an anticipated 10,000 participants from academia, industry, commerce and government.
A Morning of Insight, an Afternoon of Recognition
Day Three opened with the HIT-Zimpapers Public Lecture Series, where the Honourable Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Development, Cde Felix Mhona, addressed the theme “Moving Zimbabwe Forward: Transport Logistics as the Backbone of an Upper Middle Income Society.” The morning’s insights set the tone for the Official Opening and Awards Ceremony that followed at the Innovation Hub, where Minister Shava took the podium as Guest of Honour.
Vice Chancellor’s Remarks: A Mandate in Action
In his official remarks, Vice Chancellor Professor Q.C. Kanhukamwe welcomed dignitaries on behalf of HIT, noting it was fitting that the official declaration came on the Expo’s final day, “so that the official opening ceremony also serves as our moment of reflection, consolidation and celebration of everything this week has already achieved.”
He reminded guests of HIT’s founding mandate under its Act of Parliament: to develop, incubate, transfer and commercialise technology in service of the Zimbabwean economy, and framed the Expo as HIT’s “annual account… of how far we have travelled along that value chain, from research bench to market shelf.”
The Vice Chancellor highlighted the breadth of the week’s programming across HIT’s five Schools, its Technopreneurship Development Centre and its new Centre for Artificial Intelligence: the Financial Engineering Summit, the Digital Agribusiness Supply Tech-Symposium, the School of Engineering and Technology’s seminar on delivering engineering excellence, the HIT Can Code national coding competition, the White Coat Ceremony, the Agentic AI Master Class Laboratory, the Ndarama Technologies National Digital Transformation Symposium, and the Research and Innovation Symposium (IRIS) on cybersecurity and digital trust.
He pointed to tangible proof of commercialisation already underway, citing the Citizens Engagement and Scoring Platform developed by Ndarama Technologies and LADS Africa, launched under the patronage of His Excellency the President, as evidence that HIT-incubated technology can reach national deployment. He closed by declaring the Technovation Expo 2026 officially open, urging researchers, industrialists and students alike to “act” on the ideas born this week.
Minister Shava: Universities as Engines of Industrialisation
Delivering the Guest of Honour address, Minister Shava congratulated HIT for organising a platform that “celebrates innovation, research excellence, industrial collaboration and the commercialisation of knowledge,” and linked this year’s theme to President Mnangagwa’s vision of an empowered, prosperous upper middle-income economy by 2030.
The Minister reaffirmed government’s commitment to Heritage-Based Education 5.0, noting that Zimbabwean universities are “fast becoming centres of production, technology development, technopreneurship, value addition and national competitiveness.” He commended HIT for consistently proving that research “should not end in academic journals but must culminate in technologies, patents, start-ups, products and industries that solve Zimbabwe’s socio-economic challenges.”
Situating the Expo within National Development Strategy 2 (NDS2), Minister Shava said the exhibitions on display, spanning AI, smart manufacturing, financial engineering, digital agribusiness, cybersecurity, healthcare technology and IP commercialisation, showed that Zimbabwe’s universities “are responding directly to national priorities.” He called on industry to deepen partnerships with universities, fund innovation challenges and invest in commercialisation, and challenged students to bring “creativity, courage and determination” to solving national problems.
The Minister closed by officially declaring the Ndarama Technologies ERP launched and the Technovation Expo 2026 officially open, telling guests: The future is not accidental, it is intentionally designed.”
Digital Sovereignty on Stage: The Launch of Ndarama Technologies
A centrepiece of the Official Opening Ceremony was the formal launch, by Minister Shava, of the Ndarama ERP, the flagship enterprise platform of Ndarama Technologies, presented under the banner “Digital Sovereignty: an enabler to AI” by CEO Engineer Tererai Tinashe Maposa.
Ndarama Technologies, whose tagline is “Transforming ideas into digital gold,” already has a significant footprint in Zimbabwe’s public sector, with systems deployed across 83 local authorities and preliminary plans to expand into Zambia, Botswana and Ethiopia. Its major projects span government ministries and public entities alike, including the Ministry of Mines’ Export Permit Management System, the Minimum Service Delivery Standards (MSDS) Platform and the Citizen Engagement and Scoring Platform, alongside ongoing work with the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education’s School Management System, the Ministry of Tourism’s Zimbabwe Tourism Fund System, a Whole-of-Government citizen engagement platform for the Office of the President and Cabinet, the MyBrick system for ZIMRA and local government, and the MicroLend microfinance loan management system.
In outlining the company’s “wishlist” for Zimbabwe’s digital future, Ndarama Technologies pointed to continental precedents, Rwanda’s Irembo, Kenya’s Huduma, Ghana’s GhanaPay, Tanzania’s Watumishi and Senegal’s Numérique 2025 programme, as models for whole-of-government adoption of locally built systems, and called for policies, funding and patience to strengthen Zimbabwe’s own innovation ecosystem. The launch of the Ndarama ERP at the Technovation Expo 2026 stands as a direct, homegrown answer to that call, precisely the kind of “commercialised” HIT-linked technology both the Vice Chancellor and the Minister pointed to from the podium.
Celebrating Excellence: Portfolio Engineering Challenge Winners
A highlight of the ceremony was the presentation of prizes for the **3rd Edition of the Portfolio Engineering Challenge**, run by the School of Business and Management Sciences in partnership with the Deposit Protection Corporation (DPC):
Takudzwa C. Amigu won the first prize of $500 and a laptop, while Takunda Mudapakati was the 1st Runner-up, getting $300 and the DPC Investment Portfolio Excellence Award of $600 (CFA Institute Level 1 Exam scholarship top-up). 2nd Runner-up was Shanice T. Jambwa, winning $200 and a DPC Investment Portfolio Excellence Award of $600 (CFA Institute Level 1 Exam scholarship top-up). Shallum T. Makamba was 3rd Runner-up, winning a DPC Investment Portfolio Excellence Award of $600 (CFA Institute Level 1 Exam scholarship top-up).
The Challenge, and the Deposit Protection Corporation’s continued sponsorship of CFA Level 1 scholarship top-ups, reflects exactly the kind of industry-university partnership both the Vice Chancellor and the Minister called for from the podium.
The ceremony also recognised the top performers in the Technopreneurship Development Centre’s Business Plan Competition 2026 Edition, themed “From Campus to Start-Up: Turning Ideas into Reality” – HIT’s flagship platform for turning student business concepts into registered enterprises.
Marufu Timotenda with Limsynch won the first Prize of USD2,500. Limsync provides NFC-powered digital business cards, smart access points, and other contactless technology solutions that allow users to share information instantly with a simple tap.
Tanyaradzwanashe Dengende of GasPulse Technologies won the second Prize of USD1,500. GasPulse Technologies develops smart LPG monitoring systems that help households and businesses track gas levels in real time and receive low-gas alerts before cylinders run empty.
Part 3 Software students, Muyambiri Edith Nqobile, Matipa Brave Machangu, Nyasha Nyekete, and
Princess Kwaniya (Prolific Seven) won the third Prize of US$ 1,000 with their Map of Zimbabwe infrastructure to easily locate and fix.
Designing an Assured Future
As the gazebos come down and the Innovation Hub empties, the message from both podiums was consistent: an assured future is not inherited; it is engineered. From the Financial Engineering Summit to the coding competition, from the White Coat Ceremony to the Portfolio Engineering Challenge, Technovation Expo 2026 leaves behind a clear record of research becoming products, students becoming founders, and a campus mobilised, in the Vice Chancellor’s words, “around one national purpose.”
