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Personal reflections: ZimExpo UK 2006
By
Isaac
Nyambiya
ON A recent
visit to London I had the opportunity to attend the Zimexpo Business
Exhibition at the Tottenham Leisure Centre that also included the crowning
of the current Miss Zimbabwe UK on August 26.
The event also included a Football Tournament. This was a welcome break away from the painstaking hustle and bustle of Green Chemistry and developing Room Temperature Ionic Liquids at Quill Laboratories in Belfast wheer I am studying.
The last time I had been to London was in February when we were hosted by the Her Majesty, The Queen of Englan, at Buckingham Palace after our Research Centre was awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for research in Green Chemistry.
What I cannot get over is the fact that London contains so many old buildings. Every other pro-Londoner I met was quick to want to convince me it is that uniqueness that is London.
I also had the pleasure of physically meeting and interacting with some of the people whom I had only dealt with online through my occasional contributions to New Zimbabwe.com. These included the Editor of New Zimbabwe.com, who coincidentally was also one of the judges for the Miss Zimbabwe UK pageant.
Through discussions, it appeared to me that some of our brothers are still not convinced that the commercial growth of Jatropha Curcas L plants for biofuels in Africa is any worthwhile venture.
Someone asked me: “How many trees do you need to grow?”
Research has shown that in terms of annual revenues, if only 3% of the potential Jatropha growing regions in Africa were planted with Jatropha, based on a Jatropha crude oil price of $320 per ton and with glycerin selling at $2000 per ton, a total sales value of $55 billion per year would be generated.
Processing the crude oil into Bio Diesel would on average in Africa add a further 15% to the sales value. This sales value excludes other by-products of Jatropha. Most African countries are oil dependent and foreign exchange expenditure would be reduced. Over 50% of the land in Africa has the right climate to grow Jatropha.
Unfortunately for us Africans, it is the European companies that do most of the research and realise the immense potential of our resources whilst most of us remain sceptical. D1 is a UK-based company, also headquartred in South Africa, which has had head-start on the production of biofuels using Jatropha Curcas L.
Amongst the exhibitors was UK-based educationist Dr. Gomo who runs a Business and Computing College in London. During the 1990s , he co-founded the Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM) with Edgar Tekere. After the demise of ZUM, Dr. Gomo was also involved with Forum/Democratic Party.
He is currently one of the Directors of EduCare College which has a branch in Gweru. During our deliberations, I happened to mention to him that I was a lecturer at Midlands State University in Zimbabwe from 2000 to 2004.
He got quite animated having heard that MSU is bound to overtake both UZ and NUST by leaps and bounds. Having been one of the architects of the degree programmes at MSU, I can without doubt confirm that to be absolutely true. In-spite of the dire lack of resources, which includes lack of equipment and accommodation, graduates have found good jobs even abroad and overseas.
What makes MSU programmes unique is the concept of “shopping”, meaning a student doing any degree programme is able to attend courses of his/her choice from other degree programmes to produce a well-rounded employable graduate. Put simply, a student doing African Languages for instances can elect to take a few courses in Computing, Business Communication, Financial Accounting or whatever their choice is.
I also put it to Dr. Gomo that Universities in Zimbabwe need to able to run spin-off companies from research innovations along the lines of most Western Universities. For instance Queens University of Belfast, has an investment vehicle called QUBIS Ltd, run by a fully-fledged CEO. With a logo that says “Turning Research Into Wealth”, the company helps in bridging the gap between research inventions and value-added products. QUBIS has a portfolio of 25 stand companies under it. Multi-million pound companies such as Andor Technologies Ltd, which I have personally visited, have been spun-off through QUBIS-Ltd. QUBIS, as a company on its own, employs more than 700 people.
Private companies in Zimbabwe would also need to financially support research in institutions of higher learning for the symbiotic existence of both. BP has a stand alone laboratory within QUILL laboratories at QUB among other Universities.
The corporate world in Zimbabwe is in a deep slumber apart from the occasional scholarships here and there. Little wonder we are struggling and blame everything on politics. As Africans, we cannot leave Venture Capital or Blues Skies Research as a preserve of Western countries and expect to have economic independence. Zimbabwe needs visionaries and the time is now.
Another obvious highlight of the evening was being able to meet a young Urban Grooves singer who goes by the name Jusa based in Derby. Coincidentally, I had only met him online before through my column contributions to New Zimbabwe.com. Music is one of my passions. This is one young man destined for stardom. He gave a good account of himself on his song , “It’s A New Day”. Watch out for him!
I also met Fungwa Mawarire of Zimtownship.com Promotions. I asked him whether he sees the talent in these young men and women. In his typical accent from Masvingo, he jokingly said “Handihwi zvavanoimba”.
Music is a universal language little wonder so many Zimbabweans are seen gyrating breathlessly to Congolese music. Unlike my friend Fungwa, I see the originality in these guys.
It was also a pleasure to work with the current Miss Global, Ropafadza Garise. What a delectable young lady! Benjani Mwaruwari, currently holding his own at Portsmouth, also graced the occasion and strikes me as an ice-cool dude.
In Tottenham, I went into a Jamaican Music Shop looking to buy some dancehall. Lo and behold, they were also selling CDs from Zimbabwe. Thus I had to buy some Admire Kasenga, Leonard Dembo CDs there.
One impression that springs to mind as Zimbabweans continue to organise themselves in the Diaspora is the need to be grounded in our identity, i.e. staying local but going global. This also explains the strength of such communities as the Indians and Chinese who have been in the Diaspora before us.
Lakshmi Mittal is now one of the richest people in the world with a business empire spanning worth over £23 billion. He now lives in London, having started off in Malaysia among other countries. We can only draw inspiration from the experiences of others and taking the positives out of them.
Isaac Nyambiya is a is a PhD student in Chemistry and writes from Belfast. He can be contacted at isaacuz@yahoo.com
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