UZ Shuns Chingoma Helicopter

The oldest university in Zimbabwe, which is supposed to be one of the citadels of innovation (and has an innovation hub) stunned innovative citizens when they told Daniel Chingoma to remove his helicopter from their campus.

The innovative self-taught engineerD, Chingoma, says he was given an ultimatum to remove his homemade chopper, from the University of Zimbabwe, or it would be destroyed. The flying innovation had been taken to the UZ campus after being removed from the Mbudzi Roundabout.

Chingoma is now keeping the helicopter at his Chitungwizahome. He said he was advised to remove it or it was going to be destroyed.

Speaking in an interview with a local radio station, Chingomasaid he was looking for assistance to standardise his machine.

“At the moment, I haven’t got any help. I am pleading with well-wishers to help me work towards standardising this machine.When it was removed from Mbudzi Roundabout by the road construction company, we did not oppose it since it was for development purposes. We spoke with university authorities to put our machine there since it’s a place of higher learning.”

He said he was irked by the attitude shown by UZ authorities.

“It was for the purpose of them helping us to improve the helicopter. It’s unfortunate that we were given a negative answer.Hanzi pisai, we don’t want it here. They didn’t explain, but just said we can’t help you. I am surprised that a university turned down innovative ideas. They even gave us a time frame, hanzimukasachibvisa tikunochirasa. We then hired a lorry to take it home. It weighs 1 200kgs, just like a Madza 323.”

Chingoma, who runs TAISEK Engineering, said he has always been innovative.

“I developed a telephone in the rural areas around 1978, which could be used to communicate1km. Zvekubatairi mandiri”.