The Ministry Of Information And Publicity Is Embarking On A Digitisation Exercise

When it comes to adopting emerging technologies governments are not known for taking the lead. It has been decades ever since the digital age blessed us with its presence and at least one of the government’s departments in the person of the Ministry of Information and Publicity has decided to go digital.

The Ministry of Information is embarking on a project to digitise all archival material from their old formats. This will improve saving saving space, improve access to information and it will help protect the records as physical records are damaged when regularly accessed pic.twitter.com/WhbjPOAqs2
— Ministry of Information, Publicity & Broadcasting (@InfoMinZW) March 11, 2019

Just so we are clear this is the Ministry in charge of ZBC not the other Ministry of Information Communication Technology & Courier Services headed by Hon Kazembe Kazembe.

This is a good thing

As the picture suggests there are a lot of reels out and about within various studios all taking up valuable space. And there is the fact that if one of these is reels is damaged there is a very good chance priceless footage can be lost forever. Think about footage from the 80s and before when cameras were not as ubiquitous as they are today.

Digitising information will make it easy to store and keep safe. It will also make is more accessible and easier to disseminate. The government can upload the information into the cloud and create a portal where historians and students of various disciplines can use it in their research and studies.

Don’t wait up

We would all be better off if this were to happen overnight but we all know better. These are the very same guys that promised us digitisation eons ago and yet every season they go before Parliament begging for more funds. So do not wait up. Expect this to take a long time and a lot of money to be wasted as people conduct expensive workshops for mundane things like deciding on which file formats to use.

Kazembe KazembeZBC

Kazembe Kazembe is a Zimbabwean politician who is a member of the Zanu-PF party. He is the current Minister of ICT. He was elected into parliament in July 2013 to represent Mazowe West Constituency in the National Assembly. He was reelected in the July 2018… Read More About Kazembe Kazembe

Zimbabwe Broadcasting corporation is a state controlled broadcaster in Zimbabwe. Read More About ZBC