The Sunday News
Bruce Ndlovu
WHEN Tinashe Basa was 15, his life took a turn for the worst.
This is not to say his life up to that point had been a bed of roses. Dumped by his mother in the rural areas when he was two and sick with malnutrition for a year when he was five, Basa had known hardship from an early age. His suffering did not lessen when he went to live under the eye of a strict father and step-mother.
Now at the age of 15, they had decided that he was not worth the school fees that they paid for him. It was a harsh penalty for a minor crime. His crime? Tinashe had played as a musician at an end of year school gig.
His strict parents, who regarded music as a hobby for those of loose morals, exacted the maximum sentence for a transgression they had repeatedly warned him about, sending him to work on tobacco fields in the countryside.
“That was the day I was dropped out of school. That was when school ended for me and I had to go and look for my biological mother,” he said in an interview.
Tinashe was to find himself in the bright lights of the city once again a few years later, working as a volunteer at Zara, an orphanage in Nketa suburb. It was here at the age of 17 that he first came into contact with a computer and began a romance with the machine that was to change his life forever.
“To be honest with you I didn’t know what a computer was. The first time I saw a computer was when I was working at Zara Centre but I never had access to it. I just thought it was a TV and that what I assumed it was until a friend of mine who was doing IT there explained what it was,” he said.
Basa’s curiosity and interest around this “TV” that behaved differently from those that he had known all his life was further aroused when he was invited into the home of Dennis Gaboury, an American born philanthropist who founded Zimkids, a thriving orphan centre in Pumula.
“One day Dennis invited me to his place and left his laptop on the table and it was on and so I started experimenting with it and I remember thinking it was a cool gadget.
So I would go back to my friends with a better understanding of the laptop because I was always exploring it and experimenting. So it got to a point where I thought it would be nice if I owned one of these. But I didn’t know where to go to get one,” he said.
As his curiosity in computers continued, fate led Basa to the doorstep of man who could help enhance his understanding of this newfound discovery.
“I continued this way until I went into one of the hardware shops in town when I was looking for something. I then met this guy, Charles who would go on to become my best friend. I ended up the asking the guy if they made computers and he said yes they did then I told him I wanted to be part of the process of making a computer. He said I should make free time and then we could make something,” he said.
Armed with such a helpful friend, Basa, who could not afford to buy a computer, went to test the limits of his own powers of invention and innovation.
“Charles is the person who really explained what a computer does and how powerful it could be. He gave me what I would say is three quarters of the information that I needed and told me I was ready to build my own. So we started with that one computer which had 2 Terabyte RAM and 2 gig memory.
“Charles and I would go around town and find anyone with a scrap then add to the machine that we were building. We did this because at that time I didn’t have enough money to buy the stuff that we really needed. So sometimes Charles would find a better scrap and we would take out the old one and replace it. But everything worked,” he said.
By now Basa was now the director of Zimkids, a sprawling centre located on the outskirts of Pumula. It was at this centre, built brick by brick by Tinashe and orphans from around the suburb brick by brick with their bare hands, that he learnt the importance of innovation.
It was here that he also learnt the importance of sharing knowledge. Now he is the fountain where other kids, as thirsty for knowledge as he once was, come to quench their thirst.
“I ended up using the machine as a gaming computer but I thought since I had learnt something I needed to pass it on. Dennis taught us this concept of paying it forward which means that when someone does something good for you don’t go and do good for that same person but instead pass on that goodwill to someone different. So I thought I could take my knowledge and I help the kids.
“At the time we didn’t have the money to buy new computers for them so I got some old computers from someone and started working on them. So at the time I used to draw on the board to try and show the children how a computer works. That’s how the idea of our computer centre was born,” he said.
After a stint with robotics experts in the United States last year, Basa is now ready to see his latest bit of invention come to life.
“Last year I had a chance to meet people who do robotics in the United States. After that with the boys at the centre we started working on wire cars and so now we want to electrify one using a combination of Arduino and Raspberry Pi. So that’s what we are working on a car that can actually move around. I have started the framework of the whole thing and the boys are getting it,” he said.
The passion that got him withdrawn from school by his strict parents has now come full circle for Basa, who is now tentatively dabbling in music again. He recently released a single, Themba Lami, featuring city dance music heavyweights Exmile and Skaiva. Ironically, it was his love for computers that led him to rediscover a passion that had got him into so much trouble all those years back.
“When I had a computer of my own I used to see my friend making music on Fruity Loops and I would wonder how he did it.
So I started experimenting on it but I wasn’t confident enough to show people what I had made. One day a friend of mine who was looking for instrumentals but I did not have money heard one of mine and liked it. So I started working with Terry Banks and he introduced me to Mzoe 7 and he introduced me to Skaiva. Things then started flowing from there,” he said.
