19 Nov 2018

President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi says Botswana has advanced discussions with Rutjers University in the United States as a way of creating a platform to trade in knowledge.

Officially opening the Southern Africa Mathematical Sciences Association Annual Conference (SAMSA 2018) in Palapye on November 19, Dr Masisi invited SAMSA, BIUST, UB, BUAN and local private universities to seek allegiance and alignment in the country’s journey to trade in knowledge.

“We want to prepare ourselves for a period when diamonds will not be marketable. We need you to hold our hands with the technical competence, the more you innovate the more we are successful.”

He said for the country to achieve its goal it needed people with intellectual ability.

The president said the country already had a bit of what the experts wanted citing among others peace and tranquility, fundamental freedom and respect for the rule of law.

He informed the attendants that the country had relaxed its immigration regulations  to keep the country going for the purpose of creating an enabling environment for the free application of minds.

“We are a young landlocked country that needs the power of mathematics in dealing with challenges facing our country,” he said.

Dr Masisi said the country was willing to provide the foundational enabling platforms convenient with what was needed to transform the economy into a knowledge-based one.

“We need to get to recreating ourselves to base our livelihoods on knowledge,” he said.

To transform the economy, Dr Masisi said it was important to gather and exchange knowledge concepts ideals and motivate one another.

However he said it was also important to drill down to what it entailed to transform the economy adding that a curriculum revolution was required. 

He said the country had not done enough "to comfortably state that the country has what it takes at the elementary levelsto provide a launch pad for transformation to a knowledge based economy."

For his part Prof. Abba Gumel of Arizona State University informed the conference that economies were increasingly dependent on knowledge, information and highly skilled workers to improve productivity and standard of living.

He said the key component of knowledge economy was a greater reliance on intellectual capabilities than physical input.

The ingredients of a knowledge-based economy, he said, were high quality science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education system as well as strong support for research and development, innovation and commercialization.

He described mathematics as a catalyst for industrialization and could  be crucial in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry, arts, entertainment industry and tourism. 

He said sustainable knowledge-based economies were built on sustained excellence in STEM pointing out that developed economies had heavy and sustained investment in the type of education.

SAMSA 2018 therefore sought to address and highlight the critical role mathematical sciences played in the effort to transform Africa’s economy, he said.

Another speaker, UB Vice Chancellor Prof. David Norris thanked government for supporting local tertiary institutions.

“It is us who are supposed to spearhead transition to a knowledge-based economy and mathematics is the foundation for that. If it fails then it is us who would have failed this government,” he said.

He urged lecturers in science and mathematics not to scare students but rather to encourage them as the country "needs these young minds to take this country where it desires." ENDS

The week-long conference brings together a collection of well-established and up and coming mathematical scientists from the world over to brainstorm on the progress made so far and address current and future challenges.