Some of my Achievements

Below are the key milestones that I am fortunate to be celebrating:

1. I taught mathematics and chemistry to at least 100 secondary school level students while doing my undergraduate degree and after my first degree. This was at a school in Zimbabwe and another in Swaziland.
2. As a graduate trainee at the Zimbabwe Financial Holdings I successfully participated in a project to identify a new computerized banking software system. I also participated in the successful implementation of the new banking system.
3. As a computer software programmer working for the National Railways of Zimbabwe I participated in a successful project to develop the computerized passenger services system.
4. I worked at Africa University for close to ten years as a Systems Engineer and Director of the ICT Unit. I was privileged to be part of the following successes: 

• I championed the development of the computerized students’ records systems as an in-house project. It is still used to date and has been improved to allow students register online and also check their results online. 
• I led the development of the Introduction to Information Technology course that later became a compulsory course for all first year students – resulting in graduates from Africa University being different. I taught this course. I also taught the following masters level courses – ICT and Public Sector Management and Management Information Systems. 
• I was a member of the team that worked to develop the Bachelor of Computer Information Systems curriculum at Africa University. 
• I negotiated with the university leadership for a budget to cater for the much needed internet bandwidth. This resulted in the university annually budgeting at least $100,000 towards ICT infrastructure development and upkeep. 
• I negotiated for a technology fee to be charged as part of the student fees as a way of generating resources to support the maintenance of student computer labs 
• I led the implementation of the computer network – from a campus that had buildings built with no plans to incorporate computer cables to a campus that now has fiber and wireless up to the students dormitories 
• Together with the university computerization committee we developed ICT enabling policies and strategies to support the development of ICT for the university. 
• I championed the e-learning program – through training academic staff, implementing the MOODLE learning management system, setting up the educational technologies unit and engaging in advocacy for the adoption of e-learning by academic staff 
• I recruited staff and strengthened the new Information and Communication Technology Unit. This was a 20 member team. We also designed an internship program to support training of computer science students and to also provide the much needed computer user support at the university. 
• Together with my team we established an Information Technology training center to serve the surrounding community and generate financial resources for the university. This center also provided the much needed incentives for the technical staff as they could also receive training or offer training courses.

5.    I have had the honor to work for RUFORUM as Program Manager responsible for the ICT

       Program. RUFORUM is a network of universities that link through their colleges of agriculture. 

       Some of the noteworthy milestones include:

• The fact that the RUFORUM Secretariat was small compared to its coverage and mandate, I had to learn how to work with external technical teams to build the ICT infrastructure and maintain it. This infrastructure includes a local area network, the RUFORUM website, and key management information systems (the NAV finance management system, the RUFORUM Information Management System, the institutional repository)
• I led the project to undertake the ICT Situation Analysis / e-readiness in the 25 member universities in 17 countries. The findings have been useful as we engage universities and advocate for the integration of ICT for teaching, learning, research and collaboration by the member universities.
• I led the work to inspire our member universities to develop electronic teaching content shared as open educational resources. To date over 35 e-courses have been developed.
• We worked with 7 member universities and guided them how to develop ICT-enabling institutional policies. To date 5 of these universities have developed e-learning policies and e-learning strategies.

6.    Events Organizing: I am grateful to have led the planning and implementation of 

       the following major regional and global events:

• As a founding member of the Africa University International Peace Marathon organizing committee I participated in organizing 7 annual events (2002-2008). Together with the team we successfully lobbied for funding from the various business partners to support the event which brought in runners from Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya and southern African countries.
• In 2010 I led the organizing of the Ministerial Conference on Higher Education in Agriculture in Africa. This conference had over 400 participants from West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, Southern Africa, South America, United States of America, Europe and India.
• In 2012 I led the organizing of the 3rd RUFORUM Biennial Conference which was hosted in collaboration with Makerere University in Entebbe, Uganda. This conference had over 650 participants from 48 countries.
• In 2014 I led the organizing of the 4th RUFORUM Biennial Conference which was hosted in collaboration with Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo Mozambique. This conference had over 550 participants from 45 countries.

7.  Mentoring girls and women to succeed. My passion is to mentor girls and women to succeed. I

     realized that this was my passion in 2005/2006 when I became involved with Linux Chix Africa,

     the brainchild of Dorcas Muthoni of Kenya and Ana Badimo of South Africa. Our mission was

     and continues to be a diverse computer science industry. Our community of women and girls in

     ICT believe that women bring the necessary balance and diversity to the computer science

     industry and related teams. Together we have reached out to thousands of girls through face to

     face career guidance seminars / capacity building seminars and social media platforms.

8.  Self development -  I have done and completed the following online courses:

• E-Learning course on Social Media Tools by United Nations Institute for Training & Research called Innovative Collaboration for Development,
• A MOOC on massively open online courses by IITK and COL (2014)
• AuthorAID Online Research Writing Course (2016)

10.  Traveling and Networking: I have traveled to the following 43 countries as a I do my work in

       the information and communication technology sector: Australia; Benin; Botswana; Burkina Faso; Burundi; Cameroon; Cote d'Ivoire; Djibouti; Egypt; Ethiopia; Finland; France; Gambia; Ghana; India; Italy; Kenya; Liberia; Malawi; Mali; Mauritius; Morocco; Mozambique; Namibia; Netherlands; Nigeria; Rwanda; Serbia; Sierra Leone; Senegal; South Africa; Spain; Sudan; Swaziland (Eswatini); Switzerland; Tanzania; Togo; Tunisia; Uganda; UK; USA [Tennessee, Atlanta, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Washington DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania]; Zambia; Zimbabwe