In August 2011, a group of techies and tech entrepreneurs in Harare organized Zimbabwe’s first tech BarCamp, an event bringing together the tech community for a day of discussion, sharing, startup demos and general networking. The event culminated in what became the ZOL Startup Challenge, a startup challenge where startups pitched in a contest for a $25,000 total prize and some business mentorship.

One of the interesting outcomes of getting the tech community together for BarCamp and the challenge last year is this community of techies & entrepreneurs seeking to cultivate a more connected and active tech ecosystem that we now call Jumpstart. There’s been great measurable success with Jumpstart. Since launch in January 2012, we have hosted a number of events for the tech community and attracted some great minds, great startups and large tech companies to work with it.

As we approach August 2012, a whole year after that first event, the Jumpstart steering team has already started organizing this year’s BarCamp and Startup Challenge. The Startup Challenge has been renamed to just Jumpstart Challenge. The great folks at ZOL, who always come out to support the tech community in Harare, have committed to sponsoring the challenge again this year.

Just like last year, the Jumpstart Challenge will be held alongside BarCamp Zimbabwe. BarCamp Zimbabwe is still BarCamp in the original sense of the concept. No one pays anything to attend (you might actually get something is the sponsors all come through!), and it’s open to the tech community to be involved as much as we all can to organise the content, help out with logistics, sponsorship, getting the word around, tech accessories etc… and any other support these events require.

BarCamp will take place on Friday 24 August 2012 and Startup Challenge will start on the morning of the next day, 25 August. The venue is yet to be finalized, and you will see an update here once we are done. Sponsors will also be announced as we approach the date, but feel free to contact us on main@jumpstart.co.zw if you’d like to be a sponsor (email goes to the whole team of 4 here). The full details of the challenge will be on a sub-domain of this site that will be going up in the coming days.

Here’s an info-graphic below summarizing the event. Click for higher resolution graphic.