Tabula Rasa commenced operations on 1 March 2016 with a dream to provide homes to the informal population excluded from mainstream formal employment and business. This sector generally cannot meet the requirements for loans from the financial services sector. The idea was for Tabula Rasa to access reasonably priced and affordable unutilised farmland and then develop it for low-cost housing. Initiatives and success rates have exponentially grown since the beginning of 2018, seeing the company scale up its business from a single project made up of 650 residential units to two others in different parts of Zimbabwe.
IT News Africa spoke to Dr Tapuwa Sherekete Rushesha, the chairman of Tabula Rasa, in order to find out more about the company.
What is Tabula Rasa’s Core focus of the business?
The core focus of Tabula Rasa’s business is to identify, carry out feasibility analysis and acquire identified land. We then layout plans, design, carry out all the legislative and compliance requirements, seek all the necessary approvals – be they statutory or otherwise – develop and service the said land. We primarily focus on our niche market and all stakeholders from the time we identify land with potential. We engage our potential partners from the onset who immediately become our co-creators from then on until project completion, commissioning and handover.
What are the biggest highlights for Tabula Rasa in 2018?
Given the diversity of our African communities, full integration within the context and all relevant stakeholders is primary, albeit, the need to differentiate oneself from competitors. This was achieved to the extent that all projects are over-subscribed, a situation not obtaining to our competitors; not even institutional organizations that benefit from statutory resources. Because of the total inclusive approach that Pundutso Musha concept engages, we have been able to absorb all economic, political and policy shifts. Our stakeholders have become our biggest campaigners and marketers.
What are Tabula Rasa’s future plans and upcoming programs?
Tabula Rasa is scaling up its Chinhoyi model to become national, entering areas that traditional businesses shy away from. It is in such areas that we entered and have identified land that we are now at various stages. Our scaling-up strategy is in place and it appears to be working; needless to say, requiring adjustments and at times complete suspension in certain areas. We have not experienced the latter to date due to our very elaborate feasibility analyses and ideation processes.
How are programs of Awards such as tt100 beneficial to the enterprise?
Awards like the tt100 increase all-round awareness especially in spheres of practice that do not ordinarily get due attention. They help with formalization [sic] of ideas and concepts, definition of who we are, who we want to be and what we need to do to realize our dream.
Total consideration and inclusivity of the context in which the business operates, in terms of integrated co-creativeness, ideation processes, differentiation of optimal initiatives to challenges and most importantly, sustenance of such filtrates to the top. TR is developing capabilities to create and/or re-structure knowledge to suit its needs and contexts. We build on the strongly collective Ubuntuism; however, the sustainability of running programs in the medium to long term has been the greatest challenge given the volatility of the Zimbabwean socio-political and economic environment. Tabula Rasa’s journey has been phenomenal since [it received] its award as a result of further development and application of its award-winning Pundutso Musha concept.
What Advice would you give to future leaders who are starting out in the same industry?
Ideally, Afrintuneurs [entrepreneurs who are creatively and innovatively enterprising, both culturally and socially (hence ‘Afri’ – spiritually, ‘ntu’ – collectively, ‘neur’ – economically and politically)], thrive in any environment, no-matter how diverse they maybe. Their enterprises necessarily need to have local application and global integrity that creates self-determination through self-sufficiency and social consciousness at all levels – from self to other to society. This inevitably impacts on the bottom line of an organization in many ways that are sustainably rewarding. It is awareness to [sic] such, and actualization processes that leaders who are starting out in the industry need to engage. These are unique to organizations, but broad approaches apply to the industry.
Staff Writer
