Georges Mulumbwa
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First of all, I congratulate and generally agree with the views of colleagues participants (Basiru, Assodah, Adewale, Michael Mwareri, bandele) answaring to AAU Secretary General Prof. Olusola’s Questions.
But much more, I would like to focus on Prof Villet’s presentation, which I really appreciated since it seemed very rich and almost complete on this theme, as it gives a good photograph, an inventory of practices in African HEILs to date. However, I would like to point out two small things:
-When she writes that “The Africa We Want, needs to focus on what students are learning and can do”
I would like her to write instead (and this is what she implied fortunately a little further down), that the focus should be rather on the real needs of the environment namely local communities, industries or simply State priorities.
I would also like to suggest that from the perspective of innovation, African HEIs which are facing serious financing problems start by taking inventory and drawing up a list of priorities on the various works already produced (in previous years) by the students and researcher-teachers, so that we gradually begin to scale up, allowing this research to be known and transferred technologically on a large scale. Furthermore, she encourages collaboration between HEls and industry, a step which is very important in the approach to innovation. I would have liked her to offer some tips to get there. Because, in most African universities that I know, many are eager for this cooperation but very few manage to implement it. This suggests that there are obstacles which discourage industries, most likely the absence of a clear win-win MoU, including between the university and the student, the absence of a clear approach for patenting of intellectual property, etc. In short, it would be better to improve the entire innovation ecosystem in our HEls.
Georges Mulumbwa
From DRC
