The National Railway Sector Turnaround & Innovation Competition

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The submission window for entries start on 8 February 2026. That is the day when the competition rule book becomes available and you can submit your entry. The time left to that day is

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About

The National Railway Sector Turnaround & Innovation Competition for Zimbabwe is an unlimited multi-prize contest that is designed to help creative and innovative Zimbabweans and non-Zimbabweans who love Zimbabwe, to dream, research, create, innovate, launch, implement, improve, and commercialize ideas, innovations, products, business proposals, and solutions that have the potential to contribute to the turnaround and development of the Zimbabwean railway sector through leveraging a vast and powerful support network comprising of the Zimbabwean railway sector players, government ministries, State-Owned Enterprises, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, donors, entrepreneurs, investors, small-to-medium-scale enterprises, startups, academic institutions, employed and unemployed graduates, sponsors, other partners and resources within and outside Zimbabwe, connections!

The contest is a very broad and inclusive, and that is because the challenges facing the Zimbabwean railway sector today require all kinds of solutions from a vast array of industries and disciplines, such as engineering, technology, science, environmental science, commerce, medicine, energy, zoology, geology, history, and more.

The aim of the competition is to bring together all Zimbabweans and all those who love Zimbabwe to work with a common purpose to turnaround the railway sector of Zimbabwe, as well as grow the Zimbabwean economy, create jobs, and opportunities for Zimbabweans.

The competition will run every year for 5 years starting in 2026. The target of the inaugural Prize, the 2026 Railway Prize, is to support businesses, innovators, inventors, entrepreneurs, startups, individuals, groups, entitities, products, solutions, and business proposals that put together have collective potential to add at least US$1 billion to the railway sector, whether directly or indirectly, by 2030.

Defining innovation

Innovation is defined in this competition or contest as something new, an invention, an improvement, a substitute, or something different to what already exists in the Zimbabwean market. Innovation also means bringing an existing solution, product, or business into existence where it did not exist before. So, that means if your solution is to buy a railway wagon and have it used by the railway sector, that will be considered an innovation in this competition because the competition has the ultimate goal of turning around the railway sector and not necessarily through new inventions only. If you are not sure whether you have an innovation or not, just ask yourself if your idea or entry can help turn around the railway sector. If the answer is yes, enter contest.

You don’t even need to know anything about railways, you only need to know how to use whatever it is that you have or that any railway operator in Zimbabwe has, whether it is infrastructure, an asset, a liability, or a service, and turn it into a mutually beneficial business. That is how we can turnaround the railway sector, turnaround the Zimbabwean economy, and increase the average personal incomes of Zimbabweans in Zimbabwe by 2030!

Who should enter?

Any adult who has an idea, innovation, service, product, a business proposal, or any kind of solution that can directly or indirectly benefit the railway sector in any way can participate.

For perspective, or to give you tips or ideas, by way of examples, your entry could be a business proposal where you rent a locomotive and passenger coaches from a railway operator in Zimbabwe and you offer a historical railway tour all the way from South Africa through Zimbabwe to Zambia as a business. You then do that business and make money.

In environmental science you could come up with a solution to manage vegetation growth for railway maintenance and safety, and start your business with a railway operator in Zimbawe as your first customer.

You could be a material scientist or inventor who has developed a very strong material that can replace granite ballast or concrete railway sleepers. A railway operator in the Prize Network could then give you a prize in the form of access to a railway line to pilot test railway sleepers made with your material under standard operating conditions.

You may even be an architect or an interior designer who has found a way to recycle or repurpose old railway coaches into pop-up food outlets or offices. A member of the Prize Network could decide to fund you or partner you to get that business off the ground and you could create a very famous and profitable railway-themed business.

You could even be a student and you suggest an idea of an ambulance train. Suggestions or ideas though, do not really have prizes, but business proposals may.

The Zimbabwean railway sector has problems right now, but instead of seeing problems in the railway sector, see the potential and make the most out of it. You have a great opportunity right now to make the Zimbabwean railway sector what you want it to be. Never again will there be a time like this. There is so much that can be done and from which you may even make money or start a business.

The National Railway Sector Turnaround & Innovation Competition for Zimbabwe is for individuals and entities who want to be part of something bigger, with many supporters, connections, and for better chances of success, and who do not want their chance at success to depend on just one organization.

Disclosure

The National Railway Sector Turnaround & Innovation Competition is co-funded by sponsors and interested stakeholders, and it is not being run for, by, or on behalf of National Railways of Zimbabwe, but for the railway sector of Zimbabwe, which is much bigger than the railway industry and bigger than any single railway operator and even includes road transport, banks, many engineering companies, entire supply chains, the road and railway infrastructure, and more.

If you are looking to do business specifically with any railway operator, you also have the option to approach them directly. It may even be faster for you that way. The organizer of this competition may approach National Railways of Zimbabwe, or any railway operator anywhere in the world or any interested stakeholder, with any entry submitted in the competition.

The background

Zimbabwe is losing a lot of investment and jobs to other countries because of poor railway infrastructure.

Poor railway infrastructure is discouraging investment in agriculture and irrigation development, mining, and even other bulk commodity sectors of the economy, it even makes exports uncompetitive on price and makes food more expensive.

The problems

The following excerpt is from a World Bank publication: Newfarmer, Richard, and Martha Denisse Pierola. (2015, pages 108 – 110). Trade in Zimbabwe: Changing Incentives to Enhance Competitiveness. Directions in Development. Washington, DC: World Bank. doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-0446-5. License: Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0 IGO.

Rail Transport

High Implicit Costs Derail Traffic

Even though it is generally cheaper to ship goods by rail than by road in Zimbabwe—some US$0.03–US$0.05 per ton-kilometer compared with US$0.07–US$0.12 by road—and more environmentally sound, only 10 percent of goods traffic in Zimbabwe is shipped by rail.2 And that share has been falling precipitously for the past two decades. In 1990, rail freight amounted to 14.3 million tons. As of 2009 it accounted for less than 3 million tons (figure 4.3).

Rail services, which in 2000 were already operating at only about 50 percent of capacity, dipped to less than 20 percent utilization, and have since bounced back with the recovery but only to their mid-2000s utilization rates.

Worn Out Tracks and Broken Equipment

The secular elements of these declines reflect a combination of systematic underinvestment in maintenance of tracks, locomotives, and rail cars and increased competition from road transport. The state enterprise operating the rail system, the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ), has suffered steady attrition of its most skilled staff. In addition, the worsening economic situation adversely affected export traffic. The rail track infrastructure and signaling systems have deteriorated because of a lack of regular maintenance, and the traction and rolling stock have deteriorated. By 2007–09, only half of the wagons, one-third of the locomotives, and more than half of the coaches were in operation (AfDB 2011). As a consequence, labor productivity, as measured by traffic units per employee, was only 75 percent that of neighboring Zambia, slightly more than 50 percent of that of Botswana and Mozambique, and barely 12 percent that of South Africa in 2000–05 (Bullock 2009).

Because much of the rail infrastructure was built in the 1950s, it is well beyond the normal 40-year life span of track and would warrant additional investment in any case. However, because maintenance has been insufficient, especially in recent years, many of the segments need full rehabilitation. The rails are worn out in some areas; sleepers and ballast need replacement; and the signal systems are not functioning because of vandalism, theft, and lack of funds for maintenance. A manual system is used for signaling, which is only feasible because of the decline in traffic volumes, exposing the system to accidents associated with human error. The problems of vandalism and theft are so severe that the entire Harare-Dabuka route (313 kilometers) has been stripped of overhead copper cables, grounding the use of electrical trains (Masiiwa and Giersing 2012). The African Development Bank (AfDB 2011) estimates that the Government would need to spend some US$1.15 billion over 10 years to remove speed restrictions, repair electrification, upgrade signaling and telecommunications, and rehabilitate track.

And because virtually no new addition to the rail system has occurred for two generations, enhancing Zimbabwean competitiveness requires adding new links. For example, the absence of a direct link between Harare and Lusaka in Zambia means that trains using the Beira Corridor have to go through Bulawayo, Victoria Falls, and Livingstone, driving costs up some 41 percent (Masiiwa and Giersing 2012).

The opportunities

Below is the complete “Section 18: Powers of Railways” of the Railways Act, which states the powers of the National Railways of Zimbabwe, or the Memorandum of Association of National Railways of Zimbabwe.

These are vast areas of opportunities for investors, inventors, architects, property developers, financiers, small and medium-scale enterprises, enterprises of all sizes, foreign investors, and many kinds of entrepreneurs, anybody, even you Bro, or Sis!

1. To acquire, establish and construct depots, stations, harbours, yards, tracks, workshops, stores, offices, hotels, houses and other premises necessary or convenient for the performance of the functions of the Railways or the exercise of the powers referred to in paragraph 2 and, for those purposes, to buy, take on lease or in exchange, hire or otherwise acquire immovable property and interests therein and rights over the same and concessions, grants, rights, powers and privileges in respect thereof.

2. To provide accommodation, entertainment and other facilities for passengers carried by the Railways and other persons.

3. Subject to the approval of the Minister, to acquire, take on lease or in exchange or invest in all or part of the business, property and liabilities of any person carrying on transport services, and to carry on or liquidate or wind up such business or undertaking.

4. To provide, operate or maintain a pipeline—

(a) in the property of the Railways; or

(b) on the property of any other person with his consent; or

(c) in pursuance of an authority granted by the Minister in terms of subsection (1) of section 3 of the Pipelines Act [Chapter 13:08].

5. To construct or to buy, take in exchange, hire or otherwise acquire movable property, necessary or convenient for the performance of the functions of the Railways or the exercise of its powers in terms of this Schedule.

6. To maintain, alter and improve property of the Railways.

7. To apply for, buy or otherwise acquire patents, licences, concessions or the like conferring an exclusive or non-exclusive or limited right to use information or a process which may seem to the Board capable of being used for the purposes of the Railways or the acquisition of which may seem to the Board calculated, directly or indirectly, to benefit the Railways and to use, exercise, develop and grant licences in respect of or otherwise turn to account rights, information and processes so acquired.

8. To enter into an agreement with any person whatsoever to obtain from or grant to such person, gratuitously or otherwise, rights or concessions in connection with transport services and other operations:

Provided that, if the Minister directs that in the case of any such agreement or class of such agreements his approval is required, the Railways shall not enter into any such agreement or agreements of such a class without the approval of the Minister having been obtained.

9. To determine—

(a) subject to the approval of the Minister, the rates and charges for services rendered by the Railways; and

(b) the terms and conditions under which goods or passengers will be accepted for carriage; and to make different provision for different passengers or classes of passengers or different goods or classes of goods.

10. To sell, exchange, lease, mortgage, dispose of, turn to account or otherwise deal with property of the Railways or any part thereof:

Provided that no property which exceeds forty thousand dollars in value shall be so dealt with without the Minister’s approval.

11. To draw, make, accept, endorse, discount, execute and issue for the purpose of the business of the Railways promissory notes, bills of exchange, bills of lading, securities and other negotiable and transferable instruments.

12. To insure against losses, damages, risks and liabilities which the Railways may incur.

13. To effect, whether as agent or otherwise, the insurance of persons and goods carried by the Railways.

14. To make contracts and to enter into suretyships or give guarantees in connection with the performance of the functions or the exercise of the powers of the Railways and to modify or rescind such contracts, suretyships or guarantees.

15. Subject to section twenty, to appoint and employ, subject to such rules governing their conduct whilst on duty and upon such terms and conditions as the Railways deems fit, such persons as it considers necessary for conducting the affairs of the Railways, and to suspend and discharge any such persons.

16. To pay remuneration, allowances and bonuses and to grant leave of absence to employees.

17. To provide pecuniary benefits for employees of the Railways on their retirement, resignation, discharge or other termination of service or in the event of their sickness or injury and for their dependants and, for that purpose, to effect policies of insurance, establish pension or provident funds or make such other provision as may be necessary to secure for such employees and their dependants any or all of the pecuniary benefits to which this paragraph relates.

18. To—

(a) purchase, take on lease or in exchange or otherwise acquire land or buildings for the accommodation or recreation of employees of the Railways;

(b) construct on land purchased in terms of subparagraph (a) buildings for the accommodation or recreation of employees of the Railways.

19. With the approval of the Minister and the Minister responsible for finance, to—

(a) sell or lease buildings referred to in subparagraph (a) or (b) of paragraph 18 to employees of the Railways;

(b) guarantee loans made to employees of the Railways or their spouses for the purchase of land or buildings for residential purposes, the construction of dwelling-houses and the improvement of dwelling-houses or land which are the property of such employees or their spouses;

(c) provide security in respect of loans such as are described in subparagraph (b) by the deposit of securities in which the Railways is hereby authorized to invest such moneys as the Board may deem necessary for the purpose;

(d) make grants or loans or guarantee loans to any club for the purpose of providing facilities for the recreation of employees of the Railways;

(e) make loans to employees of the Railways for the purchase of dwelling-houses or vehicles, tools or other equipment to be used by those employees in carrying out their duties.

20. To do anything for the purpose of improving—

(a) the skill, knowledge or usefulness of persons employed in connection with the provision of transport services; or

(b) the efficiency of the equipment of the Railways or the manner in which the equipment is operated; and in that connection to provide or assist other persons in providing facilities for training, education and research: Provided that the Railways shall not make grants or loans to educational institutions without the approval of the Minister responsible for finance.

21. To grant such scholarships or bursaries as the Railways considers to be in the interests of the transport industry.

22. To make subscriptions or donations to charitable or benevolent funds or organizations.

23. Generally, to do all such things as are incidental or conducive to the performance of the functions of the Railways or are incidental to the powers specified in this Schedule or which are calculated, directly or indirectly, to enhance the value of or to develop the transport services or other operations or property of the Railways.

This competition

(In one sentence: ) You are required to come up with innovations, ideas, products, solutions, business proposals, and the like, that meet any of the objects or clauses of Section 18: Powers of Railways of the Railways Act which was reproduced in the section above.

(In many descriptive words: ) You are required to come up with, develop, provide, launch, offer, demonstrate, propose, and/or implement a solution that can help in the resuscitation, recapitalization, development, improvement, efficiency, success, competitiveness, and/or prosperity of the railway sector and/or its players.

Use the objects or clauses of Section 18: Powers of Railways of the Railways Act as a guide or hint or starting point of what your entry can be about or what it must do. This is to ensure that your solution or innovation may have a viable path nto industrial adoption and industrial application or business use or business case in the railway sector.

Your solution can be an innovation, technology, a patented invention, an improvement, a startup, a new business, an existing business, or a business proposal, or similar. Your solution does not necessarily have to mainly operate in the railway sector, it may even be in mining, transport, telecommunications, or any sector or industry that can indirectly benefit the railway sector, railway operations and railway infrastructure, or from which the railway sector can directly or indirectly benefit.

Comment: National Railways of Zimbabwe cannot do business that it is not empowered to do by law. All the railway operators operating in Zimbabwe have an agreement with National Railways of Zimbabwe. So it follows that whatever business they do that National Railways of Zimbabwe allowed them to do in Zimbabwe is something that National Railways of Zimbabwe legally has the power to do under Section 18 of the Railways Act. So, for strategic reasons make sure that your solution supports, or is in line with, or complies with Section 18 of the Railway Act.

How entries will be judged

Your entry will first be evaluated by the organizer of the competition to see if it is suitable and consistent with the vision of the organizer. Entries that pass this stage will then be judged by other judges who many be stakeholders in the Prize Network for example. Stakeholders include government departments, parastatals, private sector, sponsors, and others.

The judges provided by various stakeholders and members of the Prize Network will decide which entries are suitable for their needs and are consistent with their visions, and can get any support or prize from them. Any entry that is successful at this stage will get whatever prize, benefit, support, or resource that any judge representing a member of the Prize Network decides to provide to the entry.

In other words, it is possible for one entry to win many prizes and for another entry to win just one prize or nothing at all.

This competition does not officially provide money as a prize, however judges and members of the Prize Network could provide money as a prize to an entry or entries.

What’s on offer?

The National Railway Sector Turnaround & Innovation Competition for Zimbabwe uses a network of sponsors, supporters, donors, and strategic partners in its Prize Network to provide various prizes to winners, prizes that could be in any form, from funding and legal services support to access to facilities for testing products or manufacturing prototypes or even manufacturing the first batch of products.

There is no set or fixed limit in terms of how many winners there are or what type of prize a contestant can get. A contestant’s prize(s) will depend on the offer(s) from the interested Prize Network member(s). The more interesting, competitive, feasible, viable, lucrative, profitable, defensible, and powerful your solution is, the more prizes you are likely to get from interested Prize Network member(s).

Prize Network members are interested in things that are relevant to them and are of interest to them. A Prize Network members may want to support fintech startups while another may want to support manufacturing locally developed technologies that have railway or even telecommunications uses. If your entry is profitable, you may be able to secure funding from investors who may be in the Prize Network. You could even find your first customers or even contract manufacturers in the Prize Network.

The design of the competition increases the potential for entries to find strategic partners, customers, investors, suppliers, equipment, pilot sites, resources, and to be noticed by interested stakeholders compared to conventional competitions that just focus on the highest ranked 3 or 5 or 10 winners who take all the cash prizes. In the National Railway Sector Turnaround & Innovation Competition for Zimbabwe, the number of winners of something is not pre-determinerd, set, or fixed, but is limited by the prize offers from the member(s) of the Prize Network.

Prizes

The National Railway Sector Turnaround & Innovation Competition for Zimbabwe was designed with the insight that to succeed, most businesses neet connections more than money, connections to investors, customers, opportunities, resources, infrastructure, expertise, and more.

This competition, organizer, and or the Prize Network, may, among other things, provide an entry all, one, none, or some of the following benefits:

  • Marketing support
  • Government support
  • Business plan development
  • Strategic business partnerships
  • Strategic marketing plan development
  • Business partnership with the organizer and/or associates
  • Pathway for indistrial adoption and industrial application of an innovation, solution, service, product, idea, or technology.
  • Company registration and/or formalization
  • Sites for pilot projects or pilot tersting
  • Product development support
  • Manufacturing facilities
  • Technical support
  • Business linkages
  • Connections
  • Mentoring
  • Training
  • Publicity
  • Investment
  • Funding
  • And more.

Timeline

Competition launches
1 November 2025

Submission window opens
8 February 2026 (The Submit Entry button will becomes active on the website. Competition documents made available to download.)

Submission window closes
1 June 2026

Winners announced
June/July 2026

Get involved

You can become involved in the competition as an individual, a group, or as an entity. There are FIVE main ways to publicly participate in the National Railway Sector Turnaround & Innovation Competition for Zimbabwe:

  1. as an idea contributor,
  2. competing for a prize, and/or
  3. as part of the Prize Network, and/or
  4. as a sponsor of the event or the contest or anything else, and/or
  5. supporter

Idea contributor
You can suggest an idea either anonymously or publicly. There is no prize for submitting an idea. It will be treated just like posting something into a suggestion box. A business proposal on the other hand will have more teeth than just an idea and may win a prize.

Competitor
Individuals, teams, and entities with a strong desire, the motivation, and the energy to drive and lead the turnaround of the Zimbabwean railway sector, whether directly or indirectly, can enter the competition. Formal business registration is not a requirement. Entries will compete for various types of prizes, rewards, or support such as access to test facilities, access to manufacturing facilities, customers, and various other types of support provided by the Prize Network. You could also become a business partner of the competition’s organizer, Prosper Chikomo, and/or other partners of the competition.

The Prize Network
The Prize Network comprises of all kinds of interested stakeholders and is designed to facilitate the winning contestants to establish their businesses, business connections and networks, improve their capital raising prospects, and to foster intra-industry and cross-industry collaboration for the purpose of turning around and developing the Zimbabwean railway sector.

Interested stakeholders in the Prize Network include sponsors, strategic partners, government ministries, State-Owned Enterprises, parastatals, private sector, NGOs, donors, high net worth individuals, retired experts, academic institutions, mentors, innovation hubs, tech hubs, investors, financiers, and other acceptable interested parties who want to play a role in the turnaround and the development of the Zimbabwean railway sector and the Zimbabwean economy.

The Prize Network will provide strategic support to winning contestants which may, for example, be in the form of idea development, legal services, access to test facilities or manufacturing facilities, prototype manufacturing, pilot sites, pilot projects, product development, and market testing, among others. Judges will also be drawn from the Prize Network.

Interested individuals and organizations can apply to become a member of the Prize Network here. You can also submit a proposal of how you want to work with the organizer andf the contestants who have promising innovations and solutions. Know more.

Supporter

The National Railway Sector Turnaround & Innovation Competition for Zimbabwe needs your support. Tweet about it, talk about it, post competition materials in WhatsApp, on the church notice board, encourage people to enter, and get the word out.

You can sponsor any aspect of holding the contest or anything else that is not a prize. You can even sponsor as an individual or a group or an entity. Send you proposal. Sponsors of prizes will be in the Prize Network, which has separate benefits from non-prize sponsorship. It is actually going to cost a lot of money to run this contest. I will even need airtime. Become a sponsor.

About Prosper Chikomo

Entrepreneur. I have no money.

Competition Questions & Answers

As many as can realistically be supported by the Prize Network and the organizer.

There is no set limit or set types of prizes or fixed number of winners. I do not believe in having a few winners who will have big prizes out of 1000 submitted entries, and a competition that lasts a short time to the extent that sufficient time is not given to the entries. I want that even if your entry is the 1000th best, it should be given the chance to prosper. I prefer that every viable entry have an opportunity of some sort than be thrown away.

You will not get paid by the organizer for an idea you submit. There is a difference between an idea and legally recognized intellectual property.

If you want to make money or to increase your chance of success, enter the competition with legally protected property, an innovation, product, or service solution that can legally have its ownership verified and transferred to somebody else whether in the railway sector or not.

For example, Section 18 (7) of The Railways Act, empowers National Railways of Zimbabwe:

To apply for, buy or otherwise acquire patents, licences, concessions or the like conferring an exclusive or non-exclusive or limited right to use information or a process which may seem to the Board capable of being used for the purposes of the Railways or the acquisition of which may seem to the Board calculated, directly or indirectly, to benefit the Railways and to use, exercise, develop and grant licences in respect of or otherwise turn to account rights, information and processes so acquired.

So, you are not going to be paid for an idea even by National Railways of Zimbabwe if your idea is to them or for them, however National Railways of Zimbabwe is legally empowered to pay you for "patents, licences, concessions or the like conferring an exclusive or non-exclusive or limited right to use information".

So if you want to be paid, work along those lines, have something with legally protected rights, in which case it will not be an idea but legally protected intellectual property. An idea that does not have legal protection will be treated as a free suggestion just like posting a suggestion into a suggestion box.

Just as a tip, NRZ needs money for recapitalization, so forget about selling "just an idea" to them because they may not have the money and your "idea" may not even be a priority right now.

Even if you have a product or intellectial property or "patents, licences, concessions or the like conferring an exclusive or non-exclusive or limited right to use information" and not just an idea in your head, if you want to make money, I suggest that you find ways or have a business model or revenue model that would be best for a business in need of recapitalization, or how you could leverage that business for mutual wins. There are many ways to do that.

When you submit an idea on the website, it may be published online, with or without recognition that the idea was your own. Your submission may be public or anonymous. Your idea may aso be used in marketing and publicity materials and you will still not be paid for that. Your use of this platform is the benefit you get. I am also thinking of publishing works at the end of the competition that will include even your ideas.

You must love Zimbabwe. Any individual or entity in Zimbabwe or outside Zimbabwe can become a member of the Prize Network. Sponsors who are individuals will not be charged. There may be a charge for entities.

You can sponsor prizes or the operations of this platform or "buy Prosper Chikomo a beer". You can sponsor funds for running this platform and at the same time separately sponsor prizes, even cash prizes.

You can even propose or pitch to me however you would want to work with me or this platform and I will consider it.

Right of entry reserved. I, Prosper Chikomo, and at my sole discretion, reserve the right to disqualify any entry, sponsorship, or partnership for any reason and without giving a reason. I normally would not do this, but I may have to. Reasons, which I will not disclose, may include unethical practices, corruption, bullying, fraud, dishonesty, and criminal activities, among others, by contestants, whether before or during the competition.

Entries from nationals and entities from countries that have sanctions on any Zimbabwean individual or entity are not eligibale to participate. From my experience, doing business with nationals and entities from such countries will be very hard. Set up a local presence in Zimbabwe and you can participate.

This is my competition and as the organizer I reserve the right to change anything about it, however I see fit, and without prior notice.

Feel free to contact me.