A South African company donated equipment worth more than four million rand to the Faculty of the Built Environment (FOBE) at Zimbabwe´s National University of Science and Technology (NUST) on Thursday last week in a bid to improve the architectural industry in that country.

The function saw the founder of the Johannesburg-based KGM-FARA Trust and Muhle Unlimited Designs company handing more than 15 computers, a plotter, a server and software equipment to NUST’s vice-chancellor, Prof Lindela Ndlovu. Ndlovu expressed gratitude to the company, saying the donation would go a long way in helping the university’s architectural students. “This donation to NUST is a testimony that the university has stuck to its mandate of working closely with industry and commerce, not only in Zimbabwe but beyond our borders as well,” he said.

The computers we have received are very costly and we are really grateful because, for us to produce world class architects and quantity surveyors, we need upgraded equipment like that before us today,” he said.

Ndlovu challenged former NUST students to take it upon themselves to emulate the good work that other Zimbabweans living abroad were doing for the academic institution. The founder of the company, who declined to be named, said the donation was a way of giving back to the community that had raised him. “I believe in humanity and my donating this equipment is a means of giving back to my community. I saw the loopholes when I was an external examiner at the university and it was in my interest to donate and help raise the standard of education in the architectural industry in Zimbabwe,” he said.