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Leonard Ncube–Victoria Falls Reporter  

AFRIDIGITAL, a knowledge management start-up that seeks to close the information gap and restore the Africa’s social fabric, is pushing for programming that puts young people at the centre of all activities for them to contribute meaningfully to personal and community development.

Founded by a Zimbabwean youth, Ms Aurra Kawanzaruwa in 2019, AfriDigital researches, curates and implements information in an effort to close the knowledge gap both in the public and private sphere.

The organisation hosted the first ever ‘Africa is Digital Summit’ in Victoria Falls last week, which was attended by various stakeholders, a majority of them young people between the ages of 18 and 35 drawn from the private and public sector in Zimbabwe and Zambia. 

Among the participants were educationists, arts and culture enthusiasts and tourism players.

The summit ended on Friday and generated discussions around how young people could use technology to build and benefit from the digital value chain while developing the country and the continent. 

This comes amid realisation that there is an information gap caused by lack of knowledge about how to get it.

AfriDigital founder Ms Kawanzaruwa said there is need to create a platform that facilitates inter-generational dialogue.

“Africa has the youngest population hence we need to do things that have the young people in mind. We should create a future generation that is prepared to contribute to the economy,” she said. 

“As an organisation, we are not looking for recognition but for progress for the nation. So, for all this to happen we need an informed young person who is empowered to contribute and there is need to have programming that is alive to the needs of youths.”

Ms Kawanzaruwa, an award-winning entrepreneur who was awarded the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce and Einstein Foundation accolades for her contribution to development of young people through digital transformation, said the idea is to rebuild the spirit of Ubuntu, which has been disintegrated by technology.

“We want to put young people in a room with people who can change their lives based on the system of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is passed on like artificial intelligence and we want to close that inter-generational gap that has been created by technology,” she said. 

“Technology has separated us, that’s un-African. We want to break that and go back to our community values so that young people can learn from the older generation and preserve indigenous knowledge systems in as much as we promote digital knowledge.”

Ms Kawanzaruwa said proceedings were a success as deliberations focused on how education and art are important to community development, as well as identifying how these relate to people in the developing world.

During a panel discussion, Ms Stephane Kapfunde from Enthuse Afrika encouraged young people to collaborate in their activities.

Mr Brighton Musaidzi from Victoria Falls implored young people to grow beyond their differences and establish points of collaboration to develop each other. The first day of the summit was attended by representatives from Zimbabwe Tourism Authority and Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe and representatives from the Ministry of youth, Arts and Sport in Zambia.