TNM boosts public universities’ ICT infrastructure
Malawi’s pioneer mobile network and ICT services provider, TNM Plc, has invested ICT servers to the country’s four major public universities and two technical colleges to improve their technology infrastructure and enhance delivery of academic programs in ICT and telecommunications.
The beneficiaries are Malawi University of Sciences & Technology (MUST); Malawi University of Business & Applied Sciences (MUBAS), University of Malawi (UNIMA), Mzuzu University (Mzuni); National College of Information Technology and Soche Technical College.
TNM’s Head of Infrastructure and Cloud Services, Macdonald Chamba said the multipurpose servers are designed to cater for various technological functions suitable for tertiary education.
“As TNM, we would like to underscore our commitment to contribute towards ICT development in the country,” he said. “By boosting capacity of universities and students, we are creating capacity for them to be able to test the deployment of enterprise architecture comprising of database servers, application servers and presentation layers, among other functions.”
He added that the servers will enable institutions to implement robust test virtualization which is the foundation of Cloud computing infrastructure.
“Test virtualization have proven to be very beneficial in tertiary education sector ranging from easy management of data to provision of security for students and the institutions,” he said.
TNM reaffirmed its continued investment in tertiary education which plays an integral role towards the economic growth.
“Social economic development of our nation hinges on tertiary education, therefore, it is significant to support the sector. Our contribution will align our local colleges and universities to the world’s technology trends including quality cloud services,” Chamba said.
“The company believes that the donation will address ICT infrastructure gaps in high institutions of learning. We understand that distribution of ICT resources is inadequate in our universities and government alone cannot afford to satisfy that need.
“We believe that the donation will support government’s efforts in ensuring easy access to ICT and telecommunication services in colleges and universities,” he said.
Mzuni’s centre manager, Donnex Chilonga — who represented the universities and colleges — admitted the mismatch of practical knowledge and theory being fueled by shortage of ICT equipment in public institutions.
“There is a huge gap between theoretical part and practical aspect due to inadequate IT resources in our universities and colleges,” he said. “We have practical knowledge — however, we don’t have equipment to apply the skills.
“The development, therefore, creates a mismatch which is affecting the ICT industry in the country,” Chilonga said, while applauding TNM for the investment, saying the multifaceted gesture will improve ICT in public institutions for both learning and usage.
“We are institutions that depend on government subventions that are not enough to cater for our needs more especially in technology. We are very happy to receive these servers from TNM, this means that we are moving forward in terms of technology,” he said.
The 25 working servers that have been donated to the six institutions and other decommissioned servers, will be used for extra mile in learning, especially those doing hardware engineering programs.
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