20 Jun 2023

German Cooperation (GIZ) has pledged P1.4 million towards an eight months University of Botswana (UB)’s Open Innovation Programme - Botswana.

Launching the programme Friday, Ambassador of Germany, Ms Margit Hellwig-Botte said startups as economic entities which use technology to solve problems had the potential to bring change and transform the country’s economy.

Ms Hellwig-Botte said universities were a big part of the innovation ecosystem as they housed young and agile creative minds who were enthused to bring desired change within the market.

She said the other part of the ecosystem was the private sector as well as the places to finance change, saying that in Botswana there was a tendency to rely on government and international donors to finance projects, thereby neglecting the private sector.

“We ought to look at the private sector first because for them it is a win-win exchange to work with startups,” she said

Drawing from her experience in India, Ms Hellwig-Botte said with ample foreign companies in the Indian innovation space she had realised that they depended more on young innovators.

She said the idea was for the private sector to invest in start-ups saying that this would be the only way that young innovators would make meaningful contribution to the country’s GDP, create jobs and boost the private sector.

Ms Hellwig-Botte said already Botswana was characterised by a small private sector, hence everything was put on the small plate of government, which was already overwhelmed.

Therefore, she said efforts to support young innovators would go a long way in developing and growing the country’s private sector, adding that successful start-ups ought to look beyond servicing the Botswana market only.

Ms Hellwig-Botte encouraged innovators to always be cognizant of the fact that they belonged to SADC, which may face similar problems present in Botswana, hence this presented opportunities to explore neighbouring countries for market access.

The UB Innovation Centre director, Professor Rich Moalosi said the Open Innovation Programme - Botswana was the first to be implemented under the centre.

The programme has two thematic areas; green technologies and smart communities.

He said they had made a call to all innovators and startups to apply and invent solutions related to green technologies and smart communities.

Upon evaluation of applications, Prof. Moalosi said only 15 would be selected into the programme and be given a chance to respond to different challenges as posed by various companies or communities.

“The approach is different from what we are used to. This time around innovators will be developing solutions geared toward addressing a problem identified,” he said.

He said upon developing a solution for any company they expected the particular corporation to purchase the innovation and use it, and said the approach was best for innovators as it guaranteed market access instead of innovating something that was not in demand.

He said they adopted the co-creation process, which took onboard problem owners to enable them to assess whether the solution would address their challenge while still at the developmental stage.

Throughout the programme, UB innovation centre will act as a facilitator to bring total synergies between funders, researchers, academics, and innovators.

Prof. Moalosi said although the programme was an eight months project they envisaged it to have sustainability and continuity beyond the time frame set to improve the innovation ecosystem in Botswana.

We have engaged different experts in the field of green technologies and smart communities to become mentors for the young innovators incubated in the programme.

Prof. Moalosi reiterated that from July 10, they would hold strategic boot camps meant to impart skills on business development processes including investor pitches, writing winning proposals, business management skills, IP registration to realise continuity beyond the programme. Ends