I was a last minute guest at a relative’s wedding last month. I was asked to be the DJ within three hours of the wedding ceremony starting. Knowing very well that besides having all of Sade’s albums, I had more audio books than music on my computer. I was sure of getting booed for playing out of sync tunes.

The curse of the code

Isn’t it amazing that of all the main computer languages, I speak none. I can’t even write a simple code yet I have made money with blogs I have personally built. What sad bragging rights in a world where a simple code can make a start-up company operating from the bed of a 21 year old teenager destroy a company as old as the hills. One of the reasons why blackberry was so popular was its Blackberry messenger (BBM). Now that it’s now incorporated on android, what will become of blackberry? How many more companies will be replaced by a code written by a sophomore student on a $500.00 laptop or on a $300.00 tablet? Hush!

My personal experience with android in Zimbabwe

Iam usually invited to present and shed more light on the information I write on this blogs by entrepreneurial groupings, churches, NGOs, corporations and associations amongst others. Because all I would want to do is concentrate on my presentation, walking around the room engaging the audience, I hate walking back to my laptop to click the next slide. Since I would have been paid handsomely, it will be unprofessional to ask someone from the audience to assist me with pushing the slide. So I usually travel with a helper who I will pay for pushing the slides. A friend of mine who runs mobile learning zone (one of the best ICT startup experts I know) showed me a powerful tool called unified remote. Without going into much detail, the tool which is an android app allows me to control my laptop from my phone and this means I can push my slides from my phone. Hush! Unbelievable right! I no longer need to pay a helper. All I need to do is make sure my phone is fully charged.

The war begins – the scary part for Zimbabweans

After my first presentation using the app, more than ten people asked me how I managed to control my laptop with my phone. I showed them the app. This went on and on whenever I made a presentation using PowerPoint. It seems most people who do presentation were in the same predicament and would somehow be forced to find a helper now and then. Imagine how many helpers are now jobless because of that simple app? They never saw it coming. Imagine how many jobs you will lose by one app being uploaded now on Google Play by a 15 year old teenager who coded the program whilst eating Maputi and playing Flappy Bird. How many banks now have mobile apps which can be downloaded from App Store and Google Play? Aren’t they taking your jobs? Newspapers have seen the trend and have now designed mobile apps for their online releases. The Android army is here but are you ready?

UBER – Warning to Zimbabwe transport and logistics companies

The story of UBER does seem like a ferry tail. I don’t know any way to talk about it without sounding melodramatic so I will just be melodramatic. UBER is a company in the transport industry (taxi industry) but they operate without either a car of their own or a driver. LOL! Funny isn’t it. How can someone operate a company in that industry NOT have even one driver? Now that they are worth more than $40 billion, they SHOULD have a few don’t you think? Ok, to really explain UBER, let me re explain the concept. For the purpose of clarity, I won’t call UBER a company. UBER is a mobile app-based transportation network and taxi company headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company uses a smartphone application to receive ride requests, and then sends these trip requests to their drivers. With Uber, there’s no need to call a dispatcher or hail on the street. You request a ride with the push of a button on your mobile app and track your driver’s progress to your location. UBER then notifies you once your driver arrives so you can wait comfortably indoors. Now does my example of a sophomore student coding an applet on a beat up $200.00 laptop make sense?

Warning to Zimbabwe advertising companies – Flappy Bird experience

Regardless of the fact that you rarely check your Facebook timeline and you only visit the Herald and other news sites, it is almost impossible not to have come across Flappy Bird. However, because there is a slight chance that for some odd reason, you haven’t heard about the game or let alone play it, let me summarize. Flappy Bird is a rather seemingly simple and silly game developed by a Vietnam lone developer Dong Nguyen. The game is a side scroller where the player controls a bird, attempting to fly between rows of green pipes without coming into contact with them. The basic rules of the game are:

· Your bird gains downward speed as it falls and will flap up by the same height

· Your bird’s horizontal speed stays constant

· The pipes that your bird must fly through have different heights but have a constant vertical clearance and horizontal distance

These were the game mechanics that were reportedly earning Nguyen $50,000 a day. So what does this have to do with Zimbabwe advertising companies? How many advertising companies in Zimbabwe make a net cash inflow of $1.5 million? What if 75% of the companies move from advertising on billboards and television and start advertising online through mobile applets like this seemingly silly game? I challenge you to play flappy birds and see how it made racked in more than $50,000 a day to Dong Nguyen. If you are into advertising, get into the mobile space.

Intel Introduces Compute sticks – Warning to Zimbabwe tech hardware companies

2015 marked the introduction of pocket computers called Compute Sticks by Intel. The pocket compute stick computer can run on any HIGH Definition Television set. So all you will need in 2015 to own a computer is a television set and USD150, which is the cost of the compute stick. The compute stick which goes on sale this March will come with windows. The workaholics no longer need to strap laptop bags on their back after a hard day in the office but rather hold that the laptop in the palm of their hands and easily convert their TV to a computer after the kids retire to sleep. This really seem like good news but someone in either the television or computer manufacturing will lose their job. It is going to be much easier to sale computers in the streets without the hassle of getting a shop license. This will redefine the traditional computer dealers. With the integration of android on pc, and now on tv, what is going to be our fate? We need to change and avoid being the victims of this technology movement.

The 7th Chimurenga – the redemption

Those who have studied numerology know the number 7 means completeness. I have chosen it to coin the war the 7th Chimurenga only just as a metaphor. This article does seem like I want to frighten you and make you lose hope. Believe me it wasn’t my intention. I only wanted to drive a point home and now that I think I have, What’s next? I believe that as a company, you need to have an ICT watchdog. There is need to be watching the constant changes on the ICT space. I gave my team of ICT consultants a month to come up with only one sentence to tell all our followers. Just a simple phrase to get us ready and give us a chance in the 7th Chimurenga is what I asked from them. Their answer is, “Embrace the mobile movement”.

And as always…to your continued success