There was a massive turnout at the third edition of the annual broadband and internet services indaba, Broadband Forum, hosted by local technology platform, Techzim at Sango Conference Centre in the capital on Friday.
The indaba was attended by professionals within the internet and telecommunications industry, representatives from the telecoms regulator, POTRAZ, as well as entrepreneurs and third-party service providers.
Themed‘Making Sense of Broadband’, the one-day conference provided a platform where various stakeholders in broadband services explored the opportunities that have been created by broadband and internet service proliferation in Zimbabwe.
While some of the issues that were touched on,like infrastructure sharing and net neutrality,are part of the current debate in internet services, the conversation went beyond the usual remarks and sentiments on broadband infrastructure. Instead, it focused more on the value that can be unlocked by the increasing presence of the internet.
There were interactive discussions with local and regional players in broadband and internet services, the telecommunications regulator POTRAZ, as well as representatives of African businesses that have built relevance through the internet.
Some of the speakers included Mark Essein, the founder of <Hotels.ng>, Nigeria’s largest online hotel booking platform; Paul Soko, Investment Manager at Millicom’s Think Tech incubator in Rwanda; James Gibson, Head of Countries, e-Commerce at Econet Wireless International; Vusi Ndebele, a founding partner of Zimbabwean internet payment gateway Paynow; Rob Kuipers, the Chief Operating Officer of Unifreight Africa, Emma Kaye, the founder and CEO of Bozza and David Behr, the founder of ZOL and Group Director of special operations at Liquid Telecom.
The key sponsors for the event were TelOne, ZOL Zimbabwe, Powertel and Telecel with partnerships with Hisense Zimbabwe and GTeL Zimbabwe.
The conference was kicked off by brief statements from the TelOne CEO, Chipo Mtasa. She expressed the operator’s excitement at being part of a discussion on internet services, emphasising the importance of broadband in any talk surrounding technology.
