IBM has announced the appointment of David Sawe as Business Development Manager for Tanzania. Based in Dar es Salaam, Mr Sawe will also head up IBM East Africa's operations in Tanzania.Mr Sawe's appointment reaffirms IBM's strategy for long term commitment in the East African region. With an extensive footprint in Tanzania, IBM has recently been awarded several projects including notably a recently signed agreement with National Microfinance Bank, Tanzania's bank with the most extensive branch network.

Mr  Sawe, who has over 28 years in experience in the Information Technology field, has worked with a wide variety of organizations.  He was the Tanzania Government's first Director responsible for e-Government affairs at the President's Office for Public Service Management, and was until recently an Associate at the Tanzania Global Development Learning Centre.

IBM and the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MOEVT) signed  a collaboration agreement aimed at helping to realize the Tanzanian Government's vision of building a "Silicon Valley" type environment  around the University of Dodoma. As part of the agreement, IBM will  facilitate collaboration with US Universities on research projects in the area of smarter cities, cloud computing and business analytics.  IBM will also support the ministry in developing and implementing better access to technology and educational resources for Tanzanian universities and secondary schools,especially in remote areas of the country. It is hoped that the agreement will help to enhance the local educational and information technology environment and promote a culture of entrepreneurship.

Corporate Service Corps

Over the past 24 months, through its Corporate Service Corps programme, IBM has assigned 58 of its most talented  emerging leaders from more than 20 different countries on one  month assignments in Tanzania.  In this program, IBM has dedicated over 10,000 hours of pro bono information technology and business consulting  to the  University of Dodoma, Africa Wildlife Foundation, Tanzanian Association of Tour Operators and Institute of Accountancy.  All of   their work has been connected with economic growth and job creation.
SMS for Life

In December last year, IBM announced it was working with the Tanzanian Ministry of Health, Vodafone, Novartis and the Roll Back Malaria Partnership to use information and communication technologies to improve the availability of anti-malarial drugs in remote areas of Tanzania. Called "SMS for Life", the pilot initiative used a combination of mobile phones, SMS (Short Messaging Service) technologies and intuitive web sites to track and manage the supply of anti-malarial drugs.