In November of year 2022, our colleague and research associate from KO-Idea, Zimbabwe and South Africa, Smart Zongololo completed his PhD in Management of Innovation and Technology with Da Vinci Institute of Technology, under the guidance and supervision of Professor Ronnie Lessem and Professor Alexander Schieffer. The title of his research was: Communiversity: An Innovation Ecosystem approach to economic Development in Zimbabwe.
Zongololo, a businessman and marketing executive explains in his words his journey of trans4mation (PhD): The Da Vinci PhD was a transformational journey for self and others as it equipped me from being a mere business executive to become a catalyst for change. The Process of Holist Development (PHD) also meant that the organizations and communities that I worked with equally benefited during the research which includes Joseph Village in Zimbabwe. This research journey was possible with partnership, collaboration and support from Da Vinci Institute, TRANS4M, TCA and Pundutso and finally the emerging Kommunity of Integral Developmental Economics for Africa KO-IDEA.
The communiversity is conceptualised as a dynamic ecosystem of entities on a transformational journey for individual and collective growth thereby cross-fertilising experiences, insights, ideas, knowledge and practices. The fertilisation enriches and renews each entity in the process. Communiversity is about having an innovation ecosystem that drives sustaining growth and improvement for all the participating members of the ecosystem, individually and as a collective.
Zongololo research focused on the relevance and practicality of adopting a home-grown concept of communiversity that can transform people, organizations, and ultimately the society. The key purpose was to co-create products for the communiversity that are grounded, specifically and drawn from a re-gene-rative process of societal renewal.
For Zongololo, the next phase, together with TCA is to establish a prospective Center for Integral Research and Innovation at DaVinci Institute in South Africa on one hand and on the other hand catalyse some KO-IDEA works in Zimbabwe in particular the prospective master’s program at Manicaland State University of Applied Sciences.
FUTURE RESEARCH
The idea of the Communiversity or Communiversitism, a term coined by Zongololo during his research, needs further evolution and researching on the ways in which knowledge generation can become the key competence in regeneration of, particularly, African societies. Finally, specific research can be undertaken on the impact of technology on the concept and practice of communiversity.
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