26 Jul 2018

Minister of Tertiary Education, Research Science and Technology Ngaka Ngaka has stressed the importance of collaboration.

He was giving the keynote address at the Botswana Accountancy College (BAC) 2018 Academic Conference held in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University, England.

Mr Ngaka said the July 25-26 conference, which brought together national as well as international authors and speakers, was a significant demonstration of collaboration. Themed, ‘Entrepreneurship and Innovation for Economic Diversification and Local Development’ the conference attracted over 70 delegates from the United Kingdom, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Ghana as well as locals.

The minister said collaboration between BAC and Sheffield Hallam University marked the beginning of an insightful and proactive academia which would shape education towards global needs.

The partnership, he said, would bring employment creation as graduates would have the skills and competencies to venture into business and breed a new generation of entrepreneurs.

Mr Ngaka applauded BAC and its stakeholders and  encouraged them to continue bringing students, youth, academics, industry players and communities together for a common goal. The minister said the interactions and discussions would facilitate integration into the global labour market to promote higher productivity, competitiveness and skills transfer.

“Collaboration with local, regional and international education providers to host a conference of this nature comes at a convenient time, as it will hopefully offer solutions to address this issue,” he added.

He said research findings and case studies that formed the basis of the conference would be used in finding solutions for supporting entrepreneurship as well as leading to project implementation.

Mr Ngaka revealed that government had prioritised  supporting impactful research.

“As outlined in the strategy for National Development Plan 11, government commits to increase investment for quality research activity and direct the research activity to address the needs of the economy and industry,” he said.

He urged all institutions with research findings and recommendations which had not been implemented to consider reviewing those and converting them into business solutions.

“This would indicate the impact of research as a business opportunity,” he added.Giving a presentation on intersections of entrepreneurship, innovation and economic diversification, Assistant Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Culture Development  Dikgang Makgalemele identified film and television industry as an opportunity the youth could venture into to diversify the economy.

He said film companies could come up with a lot of projects on history, Botswana’s diamond journey and others.

He also said his ministry had officers across all ministries to assist the youth by identifying available entrepreneurial opportunities.

Mr Makgalemele informed the youth that business would not lower its standards to accommodate them but they should raise their own standards to achieve success. ENDS