Faith Chipuriro
Ruth First Scholar (2018-19)
Faith Chipuriro is from Zimbabwe.
She graduated from the Women’s University in Africa (Harare) in 2011 with a BSc in Information Systems. Her studies were supported by a scholarship from the Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre & Network (ZWRCN). She worked with other recipients of the scholarship in the Evelyn Zinanga Committee, on projects designed to promote gender equality and encourage girls to stay in education.
Faith has worked as a developer of ICT systems, websites and e-learning platforms, and as an ICT trainer. Alongside those jobs, she is active in a church organization that provides support to the sick, the elderly, orphans and the disabled. She aims to develop digital learning systems accessible to schools in rural areas in Zimbabwe.
At Durham, Faith took an MSc in Internet Systems and E-Business. She was a member of St Chad’s College, which supports the Scholarship by providing subsidized accommodation for all Ruth First Scholars. She completed her MSc in October 2019 and was awarded a Distinction.
Following her studies, Faith completed an internship with Honcho and worked as a system developer for Design 365, later working with digital marketing agencies where she focused on web applications, portals, e-commerce systems, and remote applications. This experience provided critical upskilling in building secure, scalable architectures and managing remote systems, technical expertise that proved vital when adapting software to run efficiently in low-connectivity, resource-constrained environments.
Now occasionally on the ground in Zimbabwe to advance her educational project, she adapted her initial plan from a mobile app to an offline, desktop-based solution that better matches the equipment and infrastructure actually available in rural schools. However, setting up the project has brought a few practical challenges. Her progress has been slowed down by the standard administrative processes required when working with large organizations and local stakeholders.
Furthermore, ensuring strict adherence to international compliance and intellectual property standards, alongside the logistics of sourcing school computers and infrastructure setup, has created unexpected hurdles. While these compliance and organizational challenges have temporarily paused direct deployment through initial channels, she remains fully committed to establishing authorized, direct, and sustainable pathways to deliver her tailored e-learning solution to the communities that need it most.
| Updated May 2026 Mike Thompson [email protected] | Back to home page |