06 Dec 2020

COVID-19 innovative projects are making significant achievements despite prevailing challenges.

In an interview with BOPA, brand and communications manager at Botswana Innovative Hub (BIH) Ms Kemiso Ben said five projects that had been awarded funding had since made significant progress in setting up although a lot still had to be ironed out.

Ms Ben highlighted that although people were eager for quick implementation, there was need to ensure that due diligence was followed when building ICT application platforms to avoid violating other data-governing instruments such as information confidentiality, payment gateway safety etc.

In addition, Ms Ben said the solutions were being advanced for registration of copyrights and trademarks with Companies and Intellectual Property Authority while they went through product testing and quality assurance.

Moreover, she said a critical step was in ensuring that they met all regulatory requirements.

As such, it was ideal for them to pass the stages, after which targeted off-takers would be engaged for product testing in an interactive manner.

She added that it was paramount for consumers to find convenience in the solutions with minimal disruptions.

She said should such inventions meet all requirements, such solutions would be rolled out in stages, starting this month as previously anticipated.

Ms Ben reiterated that considering all the constraints and challenges in project management, and given the importance of such projects, what had been built to date and the milestones reached so far was a considerable achievement.

She underlined that advancement of each project to a fully-fleshed solution had a high dependence on the various stakeholders that the innovators were engaging, and that BIH continued to lobby for partnership in that regard.

Ms Ben urged all stakeholders to support the COVID-19 pandemic solutions to gain commercial traction when consulted for input or when they were availed for general consumption.

The solutions will be availed on some of the online stores for downloading. Ends