Let’s shift from analysis to creation: Murwira
HIGHER and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira has called for a shift from only analysis to creation, as the Government’s thrust is to develop a new economy driven by education, science and technology.
He said this yesterday while officially opening the Fourth Edition of the Science and Intellectual Property Festival (SCI-FEST) Africa at African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation, where students were demonstrating the functions of their robots.
Prof Murwira said there was need to foster creativity and innovative skills for economic growth and development of the country and utilisation of brain power.
“Industry comes from the mind, so we must make use of the brain power and be able to have educational ecosystems that enable the brains to make goods and services and be able to sell them so that we have something to contribute to the world,” he said.
“Economies can only be transformed by knowledge which can be converted into goods and services.
“This knowledge displayed through inventions must be protected using intellectual property rights. One of the strategic objectives of my ministry is to develop an intellectual property policy to promote the registration of intellectual property rights in the Ministry’s Higher and Tertiary Education institutions, as well as the science and technology institutes.”
Prof Murwira said there was need to revolutionalise industries. “We are living in a time of rapid change, where there are stunning advances in robotics and artificial intelligence are reported virtually on a daily basis,” he said.
“Whole industries are being revolutionised.
“In medicine, robots are conducting surgeries.
“In manufacturing, some factories are entirely run by robots.
“In the security sector, robot drones are increasingly providing surveillance and in the agriculture sector, robots are planting seeds and harvesting crops. As a result, we need to design our educational systems so that they produce the right cadre who is fit for purpose.
“In this regard we have reconfigured our Higher and Tertiary Education sector from Education 3.0 (teaching, research and community service) to Education 5.0 (teaching, research, community service, innovation and industrialisation) in order to cause industrialisation through innovations by our people.
“We are creating innovation hubs; which shall enable active knowledge transfer between researchers and business experts on one hand, and industry as well as Government on the other hand. Innovation hub is where technology is born.’’