Africa-Press – Mauritius. Local innovators have been implored to deliver beneficial innovative outcomes that directly address societal challenges and promote the betterment of the citizenry.
Making submissions during a panel discussion at the Botswana Innovation Day commemoration, Chief of Staff in the Office of the President, Mr Boyce Sebetela said it was ideal to establish innovative ways that could address specific problems faced by specific groups on the ground that were traditionally not addressed by the global market or existing institutions.
He said the innovation of societal-orientated solutions would be in line with the Mindset Change Initiative, which seeks to pave a path to a brighter future for all citizens.
Mr Sebetela said rural communities in Botswana were faced with daily challenges, citing the shortage of cooking firewood as a crisis that could be remedied through the innovation of cost effective energy producing measures.
“Clearly we are all aware of the shortage of cooking firewood nationally and this is a niche for local innovators to fill in and ensure that the rural communities are assisted from such hardships,” Mr Sebetela said.
He said government had embarked on a digital transformation drive with the aim to further create a suitable environment for the innovation sector to strive.
To that effect, he said government established a number of programmes and projects that prioritised digitalisation and made it the third priority in the country’s Reset Agenda to unlock and enable high productivity among citizens.
He said a knowledge-based economy was the result of the orchestration of various facets of an economy and its attainment was fully dependent on achievements in other facilitatory aspects of the economy.
He said government was keen on enhancing life through science and technology and to stimulate a creative environment of discovery and learning for future scientists and technologists.
He thus pleaded with citizens to utilise opportunities availed through the upgrades in the ICT space for livelihoods enhancement and business opportunities.
“Innovation, together with the Fourth Industrial Revolution collectively work together to ensure and provide government and the private sector with possibilities of improvement in efficiency and economic growth,” he said. Mr Sebetela said the onus was on local innovators to change their mindsets and create lasting solutions to some of Botswana’s pressing mishaps.
Dimension Data senior project manager, Mr Julie Mogotsi, urged government to support local innovations by creating policies and legislations that would speedup the transformation of innovative ideas into commercially tradable goods and services through the provision of a conducive business environment.
Additionally, the founder of Alpha Direct, Mr Arun Lyer said it was important to have a legal framework that advocated innovators’ access to finance and a robust intellectual property framework.
He said some of innovative ideas fell by the ways side primarily due to lack of funding, hence urged funding agencies to remove bottlenecks. This, he said, would ultimately result in creating more job opportunities, alleviating poverty and diversifying cultural and societal growth.
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