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Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
THE collaboration between industry and academia in Zimbabwe has been viewed as critical to fostering national development in the fourth industrial revolution which will accelerate economic growth and enhance technology efficiency and effectiveness.
The fourth industrial revolution describes the fusion of technologies that eliminate the boundaries between the physical, digital and biological spheres. It is an amalgamation of advances in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), Web3, blockchain, 3D printing, genetic engineering, quantum computing and other technologies.
In line with the country’s Vision 2030, the Government has stepped up efforts towards the attainment of the National Development Strategy (NDS1) that identifies the digital economy as one of the 14 national priorities for the period 2021 to 2025.
In an interview, on the sidelines of the Emerging Technologies Symposium at the National University of Science and Technology (Nust) on Friday, the guest speaker, Dandemutande chief executive officer (CEO) Mr Never Ncube said deeper collaboration in the area of innovation was critical.
“Academia is good at innovation of different things because of all the innovation hubs that we have across the institutions of higher learning, but the industry has got the platform to commercialise these innovations. This is the link between the two (industry and academia) that has to be intensified to make sure that the technologies that are being done and developed in the institutions of higher learning are commercialised and they see daylight,” said Mr Ncube.
He said there was need for industry to fund innovations that are taking place in institutions of higher learning, while also making sure that they have sufficient infrastructure. Mr Ncube said the fourth industrial revolution called for digital connectivity and industry has to deepen investment in connectivity.
“In terms of digital connectivity, Africa’s mobile internet penetration is expected to reach 39 percent by 2025. 45 000km of the 2Africa cable system are going to be reaching the shores of Africa at the end of this year and early next year. The Eqiuano cable system has also been connected to Portugal, Cape Town, Swakopmund, Lagos and Lome. What this means for us as a country is that we will begin to get cheaper connectivity because we are seeing all this flooding of connectivity coming into the country,” he added.
He said the ethical use of technology also plays a critical part and the Cyber and Data Protection Act (Chapter 12:07) was a major component to ensure personal data is protected from abuse or manipulation.
Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) Company CEO, Dr Nicholas Ndebele who is also the Nust Graduate School of Business (GSB) Advisory Board chairperson, said heritage-based Education 5.0 model compels industry and academia to collaborate.
“Whatever innovations the universities come up with they need to be commercialised in order for them to foster national development. Collaboration between industry and academia is critical in order for us to realise economic development and industry on its own cannot really prosper without that theoretical view from academia,” said Dr Ndebele.
He said under Education 5.0 activities were guided by priority programmes on innovation, science and technology development and human capital development that produces goods and services. The symposium ran under the theme “Fostering Collaborations between Academia and Industry for National Development in the 4IR.”
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