News

Head of the Political, Press and Information Section of the Delegation of the European Union to Botswana and SADC, Mrs Silvia Bopp Hamrouni together with Programme Manager, Ms Laura Virgili, visited the University of Botswana for a tour of its recently established Innovation Centre.

The Innovation Centre serves as a platform for incubation of viable business ideas from concepts to commercialisation. The Centre facilitates start-ups to develop new or improved products, services, processes and systems through research and development.

The first project to be undertaken by the Innovation Centre includes a GIZ funded project to develop an Open Innovation Programme. The programme aims to develop an open innovation ecosystem for Technology start-ups in Botswana, promote digital entrepreneurship as a driver of digital change in Africa and strengthen Botswana’s innovation ecosystems and improve growth opportunities for start-ups. The project goal is to develop a functioning innovation eco-system that links innovators, customers, private, public, investors, funding agencies and innovation partners, start-ups to collaborate. The current scenario is that all these innovation stakeholders work in silos and the project aims to bridge this gap. The project is based on two themes, that is, Green Technology and Smart Communities/Cities. Technology start-ups will be recruited to develop digital solutions that address the two themes. The start-ups will solve real challenges sourced from stakeholders who will work with the innovators throughout the development process. The project output includes developing solutions for real socio-economic problems experienced by stakeholders in Botswana, transform innovations into market-ready and scalable products and services, and develop a blueprint for Botswana’s open innovation ecosystem.

University of Botswana Innovation Centre Director, Professor Richie Moalosi, took the delegation around the facility, showcasing the workstations and explaining that the Centre had a section that ran during the day, and another that operated throughout the night. Professor Moalosi mentioned that the facility was open to the UB Community and the general public. He said such opened doors and facilitated interaction between start-ups and potential mentors, thus growing the relationship between the two parties.

Professor Moalosi showcased presentation rooms for business pitches, conferences room and state of the art surveillance room. He stated that since the Centre was in its inception stages, more security inputs would be made such as biometric identification. Further, Laptops will be added in workstations to ensure availability of resources essential for startup development. Faculty of Engineering and Technology Dean, Professor Edward Dintwa added that more innovations were still to be made to further improve the Centre.