News

University of Botswana Foundation (UBF) recently held its 21st Annual Dinner Dance recently as part of its fundraising initiative at the Gaborone International Convention Center GICC). The Fundraising Dinner is part of the Foundation’s mandate to raise sponsorship funds for post graduate students through scholarships.

Giving welcome remarks, University of Botswana (UB) Vice Chancellor, Professor David Norris, called upon the Government and private sector to finance their investment portfolios with a view to providing for post graduate sponsorships.

“I wish, therefore, to humbly ask the Government to consider investing in postgraduate education, but I need to quickly say that this not an appeal to government only but to all gathered here,’’ appealed Professor Norris.

He continued that investing in postgraduate with emphasis on research would catapult Africa’s economy to catch up with technological advancement. Furthermore, he said through an increase in graduate enrolment, the University would be able to achieve a high level of research output that would translate into tangible products and services that could be commercialised.

Notably, the University, through the Foundation’s initiatives such as the Dinner Dance has raised substantial funds for scholarships. According to the UBF Chairperson, Mr Satar Dada, the Foundation has sponsored 353 students thus far. He added that of the sponsorships, 26 were sponsored under the UB-Foundation Northern Trust Scholarships, thus the guest speaker for the dinner was the Global Head of Client Solutions- Capital Markets, Mr Gerard Walsh from Northern Trust.

Mr Dada added that Northern Trust currently sponsored students at UB in three disciplines, being Master of Business Administration (MBA), Statistics and Economics.