Addressing local and international delegates to the 5th International Conference on ICTs for Africa in Harare, Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara said the continent is tired of being consumers of ICT products from the developed countries, adding that ways should be sought for Africa to be actively involved in the production of ICT materials.
According to a survey conducted by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, 27 percent of voters registered on the current roll are dead. The computer test by ZESN revealed that 2,344 of registered voters were born between 1901 and 1909 and are therefore aged between 101 and 110. It also revealed nine people born between 1890 and 1900 aged between 111 and 120 years old were still on the voters’ roll.
In its 2012 Global Mobile Market Update, international wireless data and computing solution strategy firm Always On Real-Time Acess (Aorta) reported Japan continued to be the leader in mobile data with an average of 60% of total average revenue coming from data, followed by Australia and the US which registered average data revenues of close to 42% at the end of 2011, while non-messaging data accounted for 53% of the global mobile data revenues owing to the tremendous growth in use of smartphones.
ePassports, also known as “biometric passports” contain an electronic chip that is encoded with surname, given name, date of birth, place of birth and gender information. It also includes a digital picture of the bearer’s face. Signatures are not reproduced on the chip.
The Zimbabwe government believes that the introduction and mass production of the new travel document will reduce the price of the document. Currently, an ordinary Zimbabwean passport costs US$50 while other regional countries charge less than US$30.
"In terms of the ICT document, we are in the process of concluding it. The draft document is being circulated to various Government departments," he said.