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Marytise Vambayi Herald Reporter

Members of the Zimbabwe Centre for High Performance Computing have a mandate to modernise and industrialise Zimbabwe through productivity with available resources, Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira has said.

Inaugurating the centre’s committee on Monday, Prof Murwira noted that modernisation and industrialisation was the main target derived from the country’s vision 2030 of attaining an upper middle income society.

“We are therefore developing and adopting appropriate national capabilities that are needed to achieve this end or vision, as well as configuring our systems so that they facilitate the development of these capabilities, underpinned by an appropriate philosophy,” he said.

“These are conditions precedent for science and technology to play an effective role in national development.

 “The Zimbabwe Centre for High Performance Computing was conceived in October 2011 and was identified as one of the key solutions to assisting the nation in solving challenges associated with climate change, food security, unclean water, poverty, diseases, energy and human capital development.” 

The newly appointed board members for the centre are: Theresa Muchinguri, Zviedzo Pekeniya, Tambo Nyathi, Success Mhlanga, John Mberi, Painos Gweme, Lucy Sakala as vice chairperson and Benny Nyambo as chairperson.

Prof Murirwa said through Statutory Instrument 168 of 2019, the Government restructured the centre to make it effective in the execution of its mandates.

The reconfiguration of the centre, said Prof Murwira, was strategically done to address what the nation wanted, as guided by the national priority programmes.

The centre was organised into four divisions: geospatial, space and earth sciences division; artificial intelligence and big data division; life sciences division; and engineering division.

“It is through solving real life problems that Zimbabwe Centre for High Performance Computing shall get recognition otherwise it becomes a white elephant. The key term is algorithm development,” he said.

The centre is now part of a science cluster called Zimbabwe Science Park 1.

“This is part of an innovation ecosystem, an ecosystem which houses related institutions with the aim of efficient resource use.

“At the present moment Science Park 1 houses the Zimbabwe National Geospatial and Space Agency and the Zimbabwe Center for High Performance Computing,” he said.