\
HIT Motto
News

 

HIT to Play Lead Role in New Industrialisation and Modernisation Agenda

Addressing the Institute's stakeholders and participants at the Third Edition of the Vice Chancellor's Innovation and Scholarship Fund Golf Tournament at Chapman Golf Club on 19 May, the HIT Vice Chancellor, Eng. Q.C Kanhukamwe took the opportunity to highlight the new paradigm shift in the higher education terrain.

"As you aware that a team of 10 university Vice Chancellors and the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development, Professor Honourable Jonathan Moyo were on a study tour around the world to benchmark and learn from the experiences of other institutions, and how they are juxtaposing themselves in terms of national and economic development," said Eng. Kanhukamwe.

The visit followed the new policy set by the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development for universities to lead in the industrialisation and modernisation agenda for Zimbabwe.

The Vice Chancellor, said through vision and foresight, HIT had invested in the training and re-training of key academics who would lead in the research and teaching efforts towards the realisation of this agenda. "During the world tour, we visited some universities where we have placed our staff development fellows for retraining in India. Most members of our delegation were surprised by the calibre of our staff members studying there. These fellows are performing well; better than the nationals there as they are attaining distinctions in their areas of studies. They are performing at a level that is shocking even the establishments there," he said.

Eng. Kanhukamwe also highlighted some unique and key aspects of the HIT curricula. "We then decided that from the first year right up to the fourth and final year, our students must go through a project management, design and innovation approach which introduced them to research and designing at an early stage. "Each and every one of our student who graduates must go through this process and at the end of the day must be able to defend a commercialisable project or a project that proffers a technological solution to the national needs. And that's how we designed our curriculum to give them the stamina to be able to venture into high-tech enterprises and creating them as well," he said.

The Vice Chancellor also mentioned that as young as HIT is as a university, it is already leading in terms of intellectual property registration among all our local universities; including some of the oldest universities. "We are number one on the production and registration of patents, utility models, industrial designs and copyrights," he said.

Eng. Kanhukamwe urged everyone to contribute to the new agenda and in making sure that "together we change as a nation and bring about a technological revolution." There is absolutely nothing that will stop us as Zimbabweans from attaining a world class and developed state. I believe that it is up to us and together we can certainly achieve those efforts. I am sure with this broader and bigger agenda that we have on higher education, we should be able to attain and realise this agenda much faster," he said.

Eng. Kanhukamwe also called upon all stakeholders to visit institutions of higher education and partner with them. "We are ready to partner. Already Microsoft sent one of its Vice Presidents to come and witness the fertile ground for innovations that is already happening at HIT. When we have such big organisations like Microsoft, Huawei and Samsung doing that, it means that they are seeing something. HIT has the biggest school of information sciences and technology in Sub Saharan Africa in terms of its programmes and diversity. Google and Facebook are also fishing in our midst. Last year, Google sent a ticket and took one of our students, Kudzai Chasinda to San Francisco for their annual Google ISO Summit. His innovation, The Chase Music Player is available on their Google Play Store platform. The same student was also recently shortlisted on the Facebook Messenger Bot Challenge finalists. Thanks to the staff that have gone for the retraining as their results are beginning to show for themselves," he said.

In conclusion, Vice Chancellor Kanhukamwe encouraged the HIT stakeholders to continue supporting the institution as Zimbabwe takes its rightful role not only in Africa, but globally.