In 2025, the Speaker of Zimbabwe's Parliament visited Riga and sat down with six Latvian IT companies. That sentence is unusual enough to warrant an article.
The Meeting
The Latvia-Africa Forum 2025, organized by Latvia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, focused on digitalization as its headline theme. The Latvian IT Cluster arranged dedicated meetings between the Zimbabwe parliamentary delegation and a group of Latvian technology companies:
- AdvanGrid — IoT energy monitoring systems
- TapBox — Self-service kiosks (already operating in Senegal and Mali, not yet in SADC)
- Squalio — IT managed services and infrastructure
- flex.bi — Business intelligence platform built on Jira
- Codnity — Custom software development
- Riga Business School — Executive education and research partnerships
The format was direct. Company presentations followed by one-on-one meetings with the delegation. No panel discussions or keynote speeches about "unlocking potential."
Source: MFA Latvia — Latvia-Africa Forum 2025
Why Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe might seem like an unlikely tech market, but several factors align.
The government has an active digitalization push. Zimbabwe's ICT ministry has published a national digital transformation strategy. Mobile penetration is rising fast, and the country's young population (median age: 18) is increasingly connected.
Zimbabwe's power infrastructure is strained. Load shedding is routine. AdvanGrid's IoT energy monitoring technology — which tracks power consumption and grid performance in real time — addresses an immediate need. If you can help a Zimbabwean factory or data centre manage its energy use more efficiently, that is a product with clear demand.
flex.bi's business intelligence platform works anywhere Jira is used, and Zimbabwean enterprises are adopting cloud-based project management tools. Squalio's managed IT services fill a gap where local IT capacity is growing but still constrained.
The Institutional Pipeline
This meeting did not happen in isolation. Latvia has been building institutional infrastructure for Africa engagement:
Latvia-Africa Forum. Now a recurring event. The 2024 edition drew delegations from 18 countries and over 100 participants. Each year the format gets more operational, with sector-specific B2B sessions replacing generic speeches.
LIAA export missions. Latvia's Investment and Development Agency funds export missions and trade delegations. These provide co-financing for Latvian companies exploring African markets, reducing the cost of the first visit.
OECD DAC membership. Latvia joined the OECD Development Assistance Committee in March 2025. This opens systematic development cooperation funding channels. ODA-funded projects in Zimbabwe and other African countries can now specify Latvian technology suppliers as partners.
TapBox: Already in West Africa
Worth flagging: TapBox, which makes self-service kiosks for payments and information, already operates in Senegal and Mali. They are not in any SADC country yet, but the Zimbabwe meeting signals interest in expanding south.
Self-service kiosks are a proven model in African markets where branch banking has limited reach but mobile money is widespread. If TapBox enters Zimbabwe, they would bring West African deployment experience to a SADC market.
What I Think Happens Next
The Speaker of Parliament is not a procurement officer. This visit was about signalling openness and building relationships, not signing purchase orders. But the meeting structure — six companies, direct presentations, one-on-one follow-ups — is how real commercial relationships start in emerging markets.
Latvia's IT sector is small but specialized. These companies do not compete with Microsoft or Huawei. They compete in niches: energy IoT, self-service hardware, BI tooling, managed services. Those niches map well to Zimbabwe's current needs.
I would not be surprised to see at least one of these six companies announce a Zimbabwe project within the next 18 months. AdvanGrid is the most likely candidate given the energy infrastructure fit.
The Latvia-Zimbabwe tech corridor is small, early, and unproven. But it exists. And someone had to write it down.