Byo hosts international project conference

PROJECT managers and practitioners meet in Bulawayo today as the city hosts the International Project Management Day and Business Conference.

This year’s business conference will be run under the theme: “Zimbabwe is open for projects”, drawing inspiration from the broader national thrust of attracting increased investment and transforming the country into upper middle-income status by 2030.

Project Management Zimbabwe (PMZ) chief executive officer, Mr Peter Banda, said in a statement that preparations for the event were at an advanced stage.

“Bulawayo will for the second year running host the main IPM Day 2018 event with a business conference at Holiday Inn on 1 November 2018 where the guest of honour is expected to be the Principal of Hillside Teachers’ College, Dr Edward Gumpo.

“Dr Gumpo will deliver a keynote address on behalf of the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education Science and Technology, Professor Amon Murwira, who was expected to officiate but sent an apology.

“The centre of discussion at the 1 November 2018 Bulawayo meeting will be an analysis of the project management opportunities that are available to revive commerce and industry for the City of Bulawayo.”

The International Project Management Day has been celebrated every year since 2004 on the first Thursday in the month of November. The day is designed to encourage projectbased organisations worldwide or companies who utilise project management methodologies to programme some type of recognition event within their organisations or organised locally with others to demonstrate the appreciation of the achievements of project managers and their teams. Project managers build new roads, bridges, assemble gadgets, write and run software programmes and so on but they are seldom celebrated.

Formerly known as the Project Management Institute of Zimbabwe (PMIZ), Project Management Zimbabwe (PMZ) is Zimbabwe’s largest association of project managers with over 1 000 subscribed individual and corporate members. Besides providing various project management mentorship programmes for its members, PMZ is also licenced locally by the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology to train and examine the Certificate and Diploma courses in project management including the postgraduate diploma in project management.