2 December 2008
Addis Abeba — A new joint initiative by United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the US-based Research Triangle Institute (RTI) will train African sientists in the US in a bid to help promising research reach the commercial market place and strengthen the foundations of science and business development in Africa.
The new initiative, African Science to Business Challenge will solicit proposals in the biomedical engineering and water quality fields from researchers who are interested in receiving additional training in the United States to commercialize their proposals, according to a statement from UNECA in Addis Ababa.
"The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa is proud to partner with RTI International on this important effort," Abdoulie Janneh, Executive Secretary of UNECA and UN Under-Secretary-General said in the statement.
"This unique collaboration is based on the premise that the African Science to Business Challenge can turn scientific knowledge into viable economic activities and enterprises," he added.
The challenge is designed to balance the need for scientific research that addresses immediate social and economic needs while building Africa's capacities in science and technology.
"We are pleased to support this professional development opportunity for promising researchers seeking to commercialize their discoveries," said Victoria Haynes, President and CEO of RTI International.
"Creating the link between science and the commercial marketplace is a key component of our mission to improve the human condition by turning knowledge into practice." A major aim of the initiative is to support the African development process based on the notion that science is a key strategy to business and enterprise development, which in yurn creates employment and wealth, the statment indicated.
The initiative is the result of Science with Africa conference held in March 2008 in Addis Ababa, which emphasised on business development in the scientific fields.
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The only politics - if you call it politics - Museveni knows is politics of destabilization and moving in for the kill. He did in Uganda, in Rwanda (by proxy with Kagame), in the Congo (by proxy with Kabila), in Burundi, in Sudan, he tried Kenya too, and now he is at it in Somalia. He is the moving spirit and "inspiration" behind all the destaibilization wars going on in Africas Great Lakes Region.
In Uganda he is still fighting a never-ending war with LRA because it fits his agenda of ruling a polarized Uganda by keeping the northern part of Uganda destibilized, disorganized and disenfranchised. He is ruling Uganda because he has split the country along ethnic lines: pitting the "bantu south" against the "nilotic north."
In Congo he was rebuffed by Kabila Sr. who became his own man once he got home in Kinshasa. In Uganda he found a pliant and poverty striken electorate that he oppresses and pillages with impunity. What can guerrilla fighter of the yesteryears in the mold of Mugabe and Muammar Gaddafi offer Africa of the twenty first century ? More of the same time blame-colonialism rants and diatribe. This NIPPS thing is a sick joke on Africa and Africans. Is Obasanjo - after failing to bribe Niagerians to lift the presidential term limits which his buddy Museveni successfully did in Uganda - too on this ?
I bet now come 2009 he will reinvent himself as an ardent Obama man ready to continue to fight international terrorism so that he can obsure the terror, havoc and meyhem he has wrecked and still does wreck in the Great Lakes Region.
Museveni has got a pass degree (in Marxist Guerrilla Warfare) if he ever graduated from Dar es Salam university.