Innovation Hub sees P1.5 bn investments at Techpark
Gaone Marumoloa | Wednesday April 19, 2017 18:00
In the 2016 annual report, BIH chairman Neo Moroka said land leased for developments has increased to 31% of total usable land including the development of 23,000 square metres at the Icon Building will be ready to house technology oriented companies and institutions once completed during 2017.
He further said BIH has already commenced a marketing drive to attract appropriate tenants to occupy the Icon Building.
“We have evaluated and revamped our proposition to our various stakeholders segments to enable them to add value to their organisations and the broader national system of innovation,” Moroka said. The chairman said to pursue such a strategic intent, a number of initiatives were undertaken by BIH during the period under review.
Such activities included BIH co-hosting the Innovation Prize (IPA) for Africa 2016 together with the Ministry of Infrastructure, Science and Technology and Africa Innovation Technology (AIF).
He said the main objective of the IPA was to stimulate creativity competitiveness and openness amongst local innovators while at the same time giving them exposure on the magnitude of Africa centric innovations or inventions that exist. Moroka added that the IPA 2016 attracted more than 300 local and international innovators and the top three winners demonstrated that harnessing innovation could lead to solving Africa’s real life challenges.
“Furthermore, BIH and Microsoft Innovation Centre and other partners have deployed TV White Space technology at 17 health facilities in Lobatse, Gaborone, Maun and Francistown to provide telemedicine services to these communities and that the project is currently at scaling up phase and BIH has secured the equipment through grant funding from USAID to the tune of $78,000,” he added.
He pointed out that BIH continues to engage with other partners to optimise the effectiveness of its National Technology Transfer Office and Technology entrepreneurship and commercialisation programmes.
On partnerships, the chairman also outlined that BIH has partnered with Dimension Data to build a tier two accredited data centre to provide Park tenants with high end Information and Communication Technology infrastructure and a suite of services.
“Such projects will enable both Park tenants and other companies within Botswana to have easy access to data centre hosting services,” he said.
For his part, BIH chief executive officer Alan Boshwaen said in their pursuit of high levels of corporate performance, they have partnered with Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) to cordially work on a commercialisation framework that will enable them to cast the net wider in targeting, identifying and adapting proven technologies that are relevant to the Botswana market.
He added that BIH has collaborated with academia, public and private organisations to offer various networking events and capacity building activities.