Ministry of Technology and Science has announced that it has plans to create an enabling legal framework that responds to start-ups and innovators and will need support from the innovators themselves and everyone else that wants to make a difference.
Speaking during an interactive breakfast meeting with innovators under the national technology business center in Lusaka today, minister of technology and science Felix Mutati said there is a need to strengthen the framework of collaboration and partnership what is now called the ecosystem.
Mr. Mutati notes that this ecosystem needs to involve government and innovators and technology hubs and all those that believe that change can be brought about adding that this ecosystem must be functional and reviewed within three months in order to understand how they are moving and what should be done.
He mentions that success must be celebrated but there is a need to seat and look at the path that needs to be taken going forward adding that the technology business and development fund that is in the hand of the national technology business center will be boosted by an additional 6.3 million kwacha to offer grants to the starters.
He charges that most of these starters cannot stand on their own unless they are helped particularly when they are starting up stating that the ministry will not be lending these starters ups money but give them grants.
I fail to follow what Mutati is talking about here. The largest nursery for innovators is at tertiary institutions. TDAU at UNZA is an example but it’s now redundant. The best reward for innovation doesn’t lie in medals like those presented at JETS fares. Link innovations to industry and grant innovators patent rights. Look at Trade Kings and how many products they have on the market. If innovators can come up with products that can compete on the market, to me that will be the greatest reward. And I think that’s what we need. There are many sectors that require improvement be it in agriculture, medicine, livestock, poultry, etc yet our scientists rely on external remedies. What happened to SF2000?
#1. Well stated Ayatollah. Hard to understand Mutati. The innovations he talks about is all adaptive to which we have no intellectual properties. The Zambia’s R&D is obsolete to the core, and the brains of the research and academic actors are oxidized to the extent they fail to review simple articles of scholarly nature. national technology business center is busy plagiarizing content posted in google and in the end all they do is JETS.
First reduce cost of doing business. Five types of licenses just to open a small shop and each one comes with costs. Council charging K150 for three forms which they have just photocopied for 50n each. Business levy, fire certificate , health certificate, zema licence, seed sellers licence etc.