Maputo — The Mozambican Science and Technology Ministry launched on Wednesday, in both Maputo and the northern city of Nampula, the National Programme to promote innovators, with the aim of creating a movement to stimulate creativity among Mozambicans for sustainable development.
The challenge now is to identify innovators in the country, said Science and Technology minister Venancio Massingue.
He said that to launch the programme, the ministry is using 200,000 US dollars from the World Bank, of which 4,000 dollars will support the generation of prototypes. The Ministry is also working with other partners to raise more funds for the initiative.
Massingue explained that the programme includes two components, namely "Mozambique Technology", aimed at developing technical and technological skills and competence among new university graduates, and "Mozambican Innovator", oriented towards valuing innovation.
"The 'Mozambican Innovator' component is to identify innovators at national level and assess, build, consolidate and exploit Mozambicans' innovation capacity for the socio-economic development of the country and for poverty relief", said Massingue.
The 'Mozambique Technology' component intends to take advantage of the existing technology-based companies to create a good environment for new graduates to improve their qualifications and skills.
"It is important that companies support and make room for students to practice their knowledge, which must then be combined with the needs in our localities and lead a development that takes into account the real needs of Mozambique", said Massingue.
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Five Portuguese companies have already expressed their willingness to support the programme, and will accept new graduates aged up to 35, applying through the Science and Technology Ministry.
The valuing of innovators is to be done through listing, assessing, and disseminating local knowledge and innovations. By protecting intellectual property rights, local innovations will be transformed into products, processes and services.
Innovators are to be identified by the communities where they live, or by higher education and research institutions or by the Science and Technology Ministry. Their ideas will be submitted at these various levels, and they may receive technical guidance in designing and presenting ideas.
Once all the procedures have been completed, the innovator may be eligible for financial support equivalent to about 4,000 US dollars, and will also be helped in securing a patent for his invention. Massingue defined an innovator as a person who, through his knowledge, generates solutions that had been previously unknown, and that assist in development. Such people need to be encouraged, he said, so that their work can be recognised and used.
