20 Nov 2019

Botswana can do well in emulating Germany and other countries who have taken advantage of the abundance of sunlight by setting up fields of solar panels to harness the power of the sun.

That was said by Dr Rainer Stetter, a German mechanical engineer, who is in the country as part of Botswana’s trajectory to realise the fourth industrial revolution.

 In an interview, Dr Stetter, who is attending the ongoing ‘smart green’ makeathon described the  makeathon as a forum which brings together students in the field of science and engineering with the aim of facilitating knowledge gain, creativity and innovation in exploring design and innovative solutions.

The makeathon is a partnership initiative by SEZA, German development partner VDMA and foremost engineering tertiary institutions in the country and is being facilitated by the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry.

Dr Stetter, who made the news recently for being the man who would help build Botswana’s first solar powered car noted that his main focus in the country was to identify skills that had export potential.

“The DNA of Germany’s manufacturing industry is mechanical engineering, but we are critically lacking on software engineering which is the main stay of smart and connected systems,” he said.

He further made clarity to the allusions to which he was said to be participating in the Presidential initiative of designing the electrical car where he described his presence in the country as being to facilitate skills share and knowledge gain.

“How can anyone assume that we can build a car in 4 days, that is not a thing we can actualise,” he said.

He admitted that while Germany had more people in programming, there was still a vast area in software engineering that needed to be filled, adding part of working on a prototype for the solar powered car was a way to identify skills that industries in Germany could use.

Dr Stetter further noted that after doing a walk-about of facilities at the University of Botswana where the makeathon was being held, he realised that there was high potential which however remained unused.

He added that building a specialised knowledge base was critical to the integration of informatics, analytics with machines in order to build smart connected systems that were capable of smart mobility. Ends