I recently contacted United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and submitted our questions to Ms Aida Opoku-Mensah, Director – ICT, Science and Technology Division (ISTD). The purpose of our interview was to assess the work of the organization in pushing the innovation agenda across the continent. The interview is divided into...
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Innovation Africa: I am impressed with the objectives of the second Science with Africa conference. These three objectives are exactly what is needed to make research, invention and new practices to innovation. It highlights the fact that innovation is a multi-stage process. What is UNECA doing to support research in Africa? There are...
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Think for a Change Blog (August 18, 2010) – Scenario planning helps the organization visualize the future in an ordered way so that the strategic plan is valid and likely to occur as planned. Both strategic and scenario-based planning also allows an organization to prepare for unrealized futures. The futures explored, and the...
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SEPTEMBER 1960 EVOLUTION OF MAN– “Mutation, sexual recombination and natural selection led to the emergence of Homo sapiens. The creatures that preceded him had already developed the rudiments of tool-using, toolmaking and cultural transmission. But the next evolutionary step was so great as to constitute a difference in kind from those before it.
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We took this story from the World Institute blog. They run a feature called Innovation of the Week.  This story captures the essence of innovation more than the others. :::::::: Zambian grocery stores are filled with processed foods from around the world, from crackers made in Argentina and soy milk from China to...
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Image via Wikipedia Uganda hopes to become the region’s leader in rice research with the opening later this year of a US$6 million centre at its crop research institute. The National Crop Resources Research Institute (NACRRI) received the money from Japan in September last year for the construction of a training and research...
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Wall Street Journal Online (August 23, 2010) – Companies that have successfully made innovation part of their regular continuing strategy did so by harnessing the creative energies and the insights of their employees across functions and ranks. That’s easy to say. But how, exactly, did they do it? One powerful answer, WSJ found,...
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Image via Wikipedia ComputerWorld (August 23, 2010) – Cloud computing isn’t just a way to try to save money on IT infrastructure; it’s a way to accelerate business agility and innovation, according to a recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Traditional, rigid IT infrastructures get in the way of innovation because they take months or...
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Image by Duke Energy via Flickr The best places to collect solar energy are also some of the dustiest on Earth and beyond, a quandary that leads to inefficiencies in how well the cells are able to convert strong sunlight into renewable electricity. The solution, according to new research, is to coat solar...
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Why let your waste go to waste when it could be powering your mobile phone – or even your car? IT IS a bright spring morning here at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK, where I have come to meet my interviewee for this article, Shanwen Tao. Normally when I interview someone, I give them...
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