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The season of buying awards and being proud of the “achievement” and honour has been upon us since December. Man who were asked to pay a price to receive an award were seen all over the place celebrating their “awards”, shameless achievement
The tech sector also saw unknown individuals and organisations claiming to to be honouring various tech players, with so much disappointment and disgust, the winners or is it buyers celebrated their annual achievement.
The mushrooming award organiser will tell you that they have nominated you for a particular award but you pay for an entrance fee or buy a table as an entrance fee and if you turn down the payment offer then automatically you wont get the award. Those who stampede for a single award entrance usually then get positions depending on who paid the most!
This is just pure fundraising by organisations who have no say even in the sector.
What a sickening culture, it is now being practiced literally across all the sectors and these nobodies have been allowed to make a mark in our once beautiful thriving sector.
This could have been my shortest #MondayBlues because i have already made the point but yet again, some people may think im writing from a point of a bitterness.
So one can not attack awards simply because he has never won any or because he/she is a bitter loser who does not want to see others being celebrated….
Henceforth I agree, I’m not a bit loser, I have plenty awards in the ICT sector, Infact I pulled out of national awards especially the NJAMA and the then ICT Achievers after winning 4 straight consecutive times, I felt well maybe it was time to also allow the young ones in tech reporting to get their moment in the sun.
Without offending anyone, I’m still yet to read consistent tech articles in Zimbabwe and say well these are top notch tech analysis, not that I’m the best but I think the best out there are simply also not competing for the awards, focused on other tech developmental agendas.
My personal focus had shifted from that primarily as a Reporter or an editor to one of also an entrepreneur and CEO as I was building various tech establishments.
I vowed I will not compete as I was done with celebrations and not seeing any threats hence i had to open up for the young turks.
The ICT awards under the ministry and f ICT then came back with a resounding come back, I thought it was only prudent to feature at the inaugural moment and also more importantly was testing the system if it would do a good job, because the last ICT awards again I pulled out of them because they were now a disgrace and an embrassement
I actually felt winning in such a scam would be tantamount to sanitizing the sham awards hence I pulled out , completely out of own volition!
However there is something outstanding about the new ministry of ICT awards and I have to give them hats off for an outdistancing job well done!
For the first time ever in the history of the ministry, they recognized legends and impactful players that have transformed the sector like Dr Strive Masiyiwa for his tremendous input towards the ICT landscape of Zimbabwe, other renowned personalities were also picked up under the life achievement awards, luminaries and pace setters too were acknowledged.
The perm sec of ICT engineer Kundishora in his own admittances said he made many friends and enemies , unfortunately I was one of the enemies , I publicly disagreed with the way he was running certain elements of the ministry. We fought ugly battles at times and I used the mighty pen in return !
We agreed to disagree but he is still one man who pioneered the ministry, as the first permanent secretary during the GNU days under Nelson Chamisa as his minister, they did tremendous shake ups from 0% mobile penetration to 80%, Mugabe called him the super sonic minister then and yes engineer Kundishora was also deserving that lifetime award.
There was no glaring controversy on the awards except maybe one or two issues where I would have personally thought that things must have gone the other way, needless to say, I respect the opinion of those who adjudicated over as they have their best shot.
Kudos to the ministry of ICT Postal and courier services for hosting real awards, the most deserving individuals were not missing in their list, that was profound and a job well done to acknowledge and recognis the players that drive the sector.
Bearing in mind this was technically ther inaugural show, we look forward to so much ahead and indeed the entrance of new , versatile and vibrant players.
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