Zim jobless turn to solar, music piracy!

An unemployed Zimbabwean based in Zimbabwe's Harare city has turned into solar piracy and sells pirate music.

Nigel Mavhengere operate an makeshift office where he set up: laptop, makeshift cardboard table and a portable 75-watt solar panel.

Daily Sun Reported that he is selling pirated music and installing mobile phone applications, such as WhatsApp, for some of Zimbabwe's 4.2 million smartphone users.

"Business is bad today," complains the 21-year old, who works on the pavement of a busy, vendor-strewn area in downtown Harare.

"On a good day, I should have sold at least $15 worth of stuff by now."

A lack of formal jobs in Zimbabwe has forced many young Zimbabweans like Mavhengere into finding alternative work. Many have flocked to South Africa in search of jobs, while others have become entrepreneurs, some engaging in illegal activities such as selling drugs.

But a few of those remaining at home have found a particularly thriving new career: solar piracy.

Using laptops connected to small solar panels the size of an A5 notebook, youths now litter the streets of central Harare selling pirated music and games and (legal) installation help for WhatsApp on their Bluetooth connections.

Ten songs cost $1 and WhatsApp $2.

The salesmen connect their computers to their $25 panels using car power adaptors, providing direct power from the sun.

With inbuilt batteries, the solar packs can also provide power for a time when the sun isn't shining.

"Solar is convenient for us because we operate on the streets where there is no power," said Mavhengere, who has been unable to find a job for two years since finishing his secondary school certificate.

"There (on the streets) we have the sun, for free. Also, the panel is small, making it easy to carry," he said.

Most laptop computers consume not more than 65 watts of power, said Norbert Nziramasanga, an electronics engineer and former director of the Southern Centre for Energy and Environment in Harare.

The size of Mavhengere's solar panel will give him just over an hour of power when not using direct sunlight, Nziramasanga said.

Zimbabwe has struggled with power shortages for 15 years, and is now looking to solar and hydropower to make up the gap.

Mavhengere said his biggest threat comes from the police, who sometimes temporarily confiscate his work tools on charges of illegal vending and piracy. But "when business is good, I sometimes take home $40 a day", he said.

He hopes one day his experience with computers and solar power will help him forge a career in information and communications technology.

Zimbabwe's universities turn out 10 000 graduates each year, and 90 000 students finish their secondary school certificates yearly, but few of them have much chance at finding the kind of work they trained for - or in some cases any work at all, experts say.

What constitutes piracy in Mavhengere's business are the music sales - not the sales of mobile applications, experts say. "The apps are for free anyway, so you can't be pirating free stuff. In fact, they are charging the technical know-how of installing the apps," said Tonderai Rutsito, a technology writer at TechnoMag, an online magazine. Pirate music selling is escalating in Zimbabwe due to unemployment amid concerns by musicians that they are not getting any sales due to the illegal deals.