Page 3 - The Edge Newsletter Sept 2023

RISING STARS
3
ZIME NXUMALO AIMS TO SEE MORE OF THE YOUTH UNAPOLOGETICALLY TAKING UP SPACE AND
DISRUPTING INDUSTRIES
As the saying goes, dynamite comes in small packages is apt when it comes to the astute business entrepreneur, Zime Nxumalo. The 20-year-old, second-year-undergraduate Information and Communications Technology student entrepreneur from the Durban University of Technology (DUT) is the founder and CEO of Zime Wezwe Creatives. It is a software development company that specialises in quality website and application development which is also currently developing a prototype for the real estate industry using blockchain technology.
“My philosophy is ‘you can never ask of me something that you fail to ask of yourself’. I cannot expect people to keep their promises to me when I fail to keep the promises that I made to myself, and I am not reliable to myself. So that is what drives me - the promises that I made to a 7-year-old me,” states Zime Nxumalo.
For Nxumalo, she would go about describing herself as a little girl with a big God that chose to believe in herself. She is an advocate for self-development therefore she is always looking to improve herself and her craft by pushing the boundaries of what people might believe is possible. “I don’t believe I have a limit therefore am willing to push myself and my dreams to wherever they take me. I think that it’s God’s grace that I have been able to marry two of my favourite things – business and IT. It seems to work for me mostly because my degree is largely based on my business therefore definitely gives me a competitive advantage on all fronts,” she confessed.
Nxumalo started her business at the age of 17, and has been in business for more than a year now.“I believe that students and the youth at large should be the pioneers of their future.We have the ability and the chance to change the entire trajectory of this nation – we should use it,” she quipped.
No entrepreneur can grow without facing challenges and Nxumalo is no exception, adding that mastering time management as well as focus is something that she has not yet perfected but is working towards it. However, she confessed that her ultimate challenge has been fear.
She has now learned that once one masters one’s mind and silences one’s fears – one can do wonders so she is learning how to rise above her fears and to remain humble through the process. Nxumalo thrives on being an adaptive student and responding to changes in the world aiming to make a contribution towards providing solutions to societal problems and improving the lives and livelihoods of the broader society through her business.
Looking at her entrepreneurial skills and how it was honed, Nxumalo gives credit to her family. “I believe that this is something that had been ingrained in my siblings and I from a very young age as we used to let our imaginations run wild as we ‘established’ our own ‘countries’ which were just our bedrooms with our ‘country names’ stuck onto the walls. We had borders, toll gates, royalty and the works.We had to learn at that very young age how to properly manage a ‘country’. From the tender age of 7, we taught ourselves some basics in supply chain management, investing, customer relations and accounting,” she said.
Nxumalo’s humble list of accolades includes:
➠ Mail and Guardian Top 200:Tech & Innovation
➠ Top 100 Young Mandalas 2023
➠ Most Improved Business of the Year 2023 Innobiz
Award
➠ Best VELUX Collaborator
➠ National Winner for Best Pitch
➠ Huawei 2023 H1 Best Ambassador
➠ Young Female External Recognition Award 2023
➠ Sunday World Heroic Women 2023
She also recently was given the opportunity to give a presentation on “Industry Disruption using Blockchain Technology” to final year MBA students at the Northpark University of Chicago in the United States of America. Nxumalo further participated in the 2022 Fall Global Master’s School Programme in which she represented Africa and DUT at the University of Missouri, St Louis.
For Nxumalo, she is actually the first person in her family to get onto a plane – never mind going overseas. “The experience was definitely life-changing as my perspective on life and business has changed and this is due to the diversity in cultures and ideas that I have been exposed to.The trip to Chicago was a great experience as well as touring some of the tourist attractions in these buzzing cities,” she said enthusiastically.
Having immense accolades has been vital for her business as it has given her more opportunities in the form of national and international potential partnerships and investments.This has shifted her perspective in business and life in general as such exposure has shown her that life is not confined to the borders of this country - a person is only as wise as their experiences.
“It has given me the ability to have options therefore enabling me to operate from a place of power and not from a place of begging, therefore, I gladly walk away from any deals that do not align with my morals,” she added.
Having role models is a crucial part of her life and she is grateful that in her journey to success that she is fortunate enough to have been exposed to many role models and mentors, one of them being the dynamic Director Technology Transfer and Innovation: Professor Keolebogile Motaung. She pushed her to challenge herself and has been helping her to properly navigate the business world.
“Now, forget the impossibilities for a moment but what is history? Is it not a composition of tales told by conquerors with the total omission of the tales of the conquered? What kind of history is it that leaves most of the truth lying in the dark? Imagine if the blockchain had been there during our most historical moments, we would know exactly what happened and thus have a deeper understanding of our histories and a deeper understanding of ourselves concerning our human history, that’s the power of blockchain – it is an immutable, trustless, and permissionless technology that frees us from the age-old powers of corruption, deception, subversion and modification of events.That is why blockchain is the future,” she stressed.
Besides her strong business acumen, Nxumalo stressed her life is rather boring which entails a routine, almost like a soldier. Every hour and minute is accounted for.
“I try to dedicate two hours to prayer, five hours to schoolwork, three hours to business, and three hours to self-development (exercising, meditation, reading, learning Spanish, self-reflection, and journaling). I relax for about two hours (which is mostly me observing and learning the psychology behind human behaviours), and 30 minutes
to an hour phone call with my parents. I generally have meetings throughout the day and I’ve been trying to get at least six hours of sleep so I do not burnout but when I can’t then I take naps throughout the day,” she chuckled.
The biggest value that guides Nxumalo is ‘Above all else, do no harm’. She expressed that technology is rapidly changing the world and the saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom meaning that in the position that she is in right now, the biggest thing that she wants to do is to educate people to be more independent, think more critically and to actively participate in the change and not be spectators of it because ignorance is not bliss.
“I aim to provide more opportunities to the youth at large in the form of programmes that would expose them to what’s possible and then harness their limitless creativity to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems. Nothing is impossible,” said the talented entrepreneur.
Pictured: Zime Nxumalo Waheeda Peters