This photo shows power banks made by Sam Smith Silumbu at his workshop in Blantyre, Malawi, Dec. 29, 2022. (Photo by Joseph Mizere/Xinhua)
BLANTYRE, Malawi, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- Inspired by Chinese technologies, a 30-year-old man in Malawi has embarked on making phone accessories with the aim of establishing a giant local tech manufacturing company.
Sam Smith Silumbu manufactures mobile phone accessories, including low-cost power banks, convenient for use on various mobile gadgets to deal with power shortages in Malawi.
Despite studying civil engineering at Xinyu University in Jiangxi Province in China, Silumbu came across a lot of Chinese technologies, including techniques for making power banks.
"When I came back from China, I observed that we had a lot of problems with the power blackouts; that's how the whole idea started. So we make these power banks with the aim of making them affordable and efficient," Silumbu told Xinhua in a recent interview.
Silumbu is selling low-cost power banks under Kayondo Science Technology, a mobile phone accessories manufacturing company. He said he will widen its scope of business in the future.
"We have received a lot of feedback and demand. We are even failing to meet the demand because of low supply. But we are finding ways to curb the challenge," said Silumbu.
"Our biggest challenge is electricity. In most cases, we need an eight-hour continuous supply of electricity for our equipment to operate efficiently. However, continuing load-shedding schedules always hinder our productivity," he added.
Chinese Ambassador to Malawi Long Zhou expressed his country's commitment to helping Malawi achieve its 2063 agenda, among others, by upholding the various agreements between the two countries.
"We are committed to working with our Malawian friends to further build up our relationship, to further strengthen our political trust, to further expand our corporation under the framework of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and in alignment with your own development strategy, the Malawi 2063 vision," Long said in an interview.
According to Silumbu, his workshop is in line with Malawi's 2063 agenda that promotes industrialization; with a broader scope of business, his workshop will create more job opportunities.
Malawian Minister of Information and Digitization Gospel Kazako has emphasized the need for young people like Silumbu to achieve Malawi's Agenda 2063.
"These will be people to implement our development program ahead of 2063. Young people are crucial. But it is not a question of having young people; we need young people that are well trained," Kazako said.
"We need to have young people that are well calibrated, young people that are ready and young people that are in line with the vision we have as a country," he said. ■
Sam Smith Silumbu makes a power bank at his workshop in Blantyre, Malawi, Dec. 29, 2022. (Photo by Joseph Mizere/Xinhua)