The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
Zimbabwe has been encouraged to accelerate growth and demand for data centres as they are the gateway to solve problems affecting Africa as a whole.
This was highlighted during a Data Centre Africa Expo and Conference in Victoria Falls by the deputy Minister of Information Communication Technologies and Courier Services, Hon Dr Jenfan Muswere last week.
“Since last year, Data Centre Africa has been bringing Africa’s brightest minds together to map ways to solve problems affecting Africa’s digital economy. Data Centre Africa team understands that every event is different and offer tailored solutions to best meet the needs of data centre stakeholders in Africa and beyond. This Conference’s main focus is to provide a solution that adds value to Africa’s digital community. I strongly believe this will accelerate growth and demand of data centre services in Africa,” he said.
The deputy Minister said in spite of their importance to the African economy, data centres are still underexposed in the media, politics, governments and society. He said the data centre industry deserves a proper representation in these fields.
He also noted the advances in technology that have opened new opportunities, old business models are dissolving, leaving the field wide open for innovation.
“Africa’s digital market is an emerging market and the business world is calling the ICT Industry to upgrade its relationship with them by partnering with them. Instead of us being just service providers, we need to re-examine some fundamentally new and profoundly more efficient approaches to economic problems and improve the way the business community is doing its business.
“For Zimbabwe it is a time of sweeping change and revolution, therefore reimagining is the best way to go. This way we can be able to accelerate growth and demand,” he said.
Deputy Minister Muswere told the conference that there were rapid changes in technology development which has made application investment almost absolute and redundant in a short space of time
“These changes are coming with challenges as in any other industry in the world, the world has become more competitive; the economy has undeniable vulnerabilities and is in need of reinvention. We need to take the subject of data centres seriously. The data centre is an essential part of today’s business world,” he said.
He said the reference function of data centres and services, is very important and similarly, users look to data centres as a source of high quality trusted data, saying both these functions of data centres are highly valued and should be maintained and encouraged.
The expo was aimed at driving awareness of the industry towards stakeholders such as Government, the media and society at large, expressing the views of the industry with regard to regulation and policy issues and to promote the image and the economic importance of the data centre industry.
Government is building its own National Data Centre which is now 95 percent complete.
