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At the Digital Government Africa Summit 2025 held in Lusaka, SMART Zambia Institute (SZI), inq Zambia, and Mezzanine formally announced a landmark partnership to drive digital transformation in the country. This collaboration is anchored on Mezzanine’s Helium Platform and aims to deliver scalable, secure, and fully locally hosted digital infrastructure under a Kwacha-based Service Level Agreement (SLA).
A Partnership for Local Digital Sovereignty
The new alliance brings together Zambia’s homegrown digital institutions with Mezzanine’s deep experience in deploying platforms in constrained environments. Together, the partnership aspires to:
- Enable Zambia-based, sustainable hosting of government and enterprise systems
- Promote African-led innovation, reducing dependency on external infrastructure
- Support cross-sector digital initiatives – from health, education, agriculture, to citizen services
- Offer predictability and accountability through SLA-backed services in local currency
“Our role is to bring industrial-strength digital infrastructure into local ecosystems, the Helium Platform is built for that purpose,” added Jacques de Vos, Mezzanine CEO “We look forward to delivering trusted, scalable services that grow with Zambia’s ambitions.”
Why This Partnership Matters
- Built in Africa. For Africa. Powered by Helium. The partnership tagline reflects the ethos behind this venture: locally led, locally hosted, and powered by advanced technology.
- Sovereign infrastructure by localizing the platform stack, Zambia retains control over data, systems, and deployment choices — a key element in digital sovereignty and national security.
- Sustainability through local contracts Adopting a Kwacha-denominated SLA ensures service continuity without foreign-exchange risk, making digital services more resilient over time.
- Scalable across sectors While government services are a core focus, the infrastructure is engineered to support cross-sector digital transformation — enabling innovation in health, agriculture, utilities, citizen engagement, and beyond.
- Capacity building and skills transfer The initiative will include knowledge transfer, training, and the development of local talent so that Zambia’s digital ecosystem continues to grow from within. Next Steps
Over the coming months, the partners will:
- Undertake infrastructure deployment and local hosting setup
- Migrate targeted government and enterprise workloads onto Helium
- Launch pilot programmes across selected ministries and sectors
- Monitor, refine, and scale based on feedback and operational performance
- Offer open collaboration for other African nations and institutions to adopt this model
INFO SUPPLIED.