Business Reporter
ICT consulting firm Rubiem Technologies is eyeing expansion into the continent by leversaging on the work its doing in the nine African countries that it’s already operating in.

The company has operations in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Malawi, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Mauritius, Zambia and South Sudan.

Rubiem group CEO, Dennis Magaya said that as a company they want to do their part to drive Africa’s ICT agenda.

“For us to achieve that we need to have the critical mass hence our drive to establish ourselves all over Africa. We firmly believe that solutions to ICT problems in Africa should come from Africans.

“One of the greatest resource that we have in Africa other than our natural resource is our intellect which we should use for our benefit.

“As a company we are helping to develop this intellect in that the 40 consultants that are running our operations in the countries that we are operating in are natives of those countries,” he said.

Dr Magaya said solution to ICT problems on the continent do not necessarily require a lot of equipment.

“Whenever people think or talk about ICT solutions they automatically think of huge boxes of equipment but what we are talking about are simple applications that enable corporates and organisations to reach the masses.

“One of our successful tools has been the development of apps that enable traditional businesses and organisation to go down to the bottom of the pyramid.

“For instance we have developed apps for the insurance sector that enable a person on the street to get information about an insurance company, its products, to apply on line, to pay their premium and also submit claims via their phone and now the organisations that we have been working with are now consumer facing.

“We have also done the same with the medical aid sector where a patient does not need to wait for days to get results of a test from a doctor as the app allows to get the test results in real time or validate membership after business hours.

“We have also done an app for the National Blood Transfusion Service which allows its donors to keep in touch with development at the touch of a button. Our apps have the advantage of using the internet or SMS or USSD,” he said.

Dr Magaya said that in Zimbabwe there is need for companies and organisations to leverage on ICTs to reach the masses.

“What we are saying is that the economy is now largely informal and companies need to come up with new and innovative ways of reaching the masses and they can do that through ICT.

“The Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation has taught us to look for opportunities and ICT is at the core of Zim-Asset.

“NSSA for instance was configured for corporates and that is why their products are linked to the pay slip but what we are saying is why they can’t reach out to the person on the street by creating facilities that allow the ordinary man to subscribe without having to produce a payslip,” he said.

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