Research and Development

RCEzinaida's picture

JOIN NOW! 8th Global RCE Conference Research and Development Discussion Group

Welcome to the 2013 Global RCE Conference Research and Development Discussion Group! Please join in the pre-conference discussions today by sharing your thoughts on the topics you feel most need to be addressed in the group meeting during the Global Conference in Nairobi.

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RCEzomba's picture

My name is Marlene Chikuni from RCE Zomba. the conference could explore ways of engaging in meaningful and relevant research without being seen as anti-development; engagement with policy makers to fund long term research rather than research with short term impact just because they want to please constituents.
Evans Kipngeno's picture

My names Evans Kipngeno. I come from Kenya.Iam a researcher by proffession. Universities in East Africa region and africa at large, have a problem in producing half-baked graduates who do not conform with labor market demands.

Universities are established on theme of INNOVATION & RESEARCH. That is where the line is drawn between the universities and other institutions of higher learning.
Every year, universities in Kenya alone produce over 30,000 graduates, unfortunately not in the same ratio
as they innovate

Recently, i had an opportunity to visit an exhibition center here in Nairobi and was in a stall that was exhibiting a charcoal stove burner. The stove was said to trap Carbon-monoxide gas from escaping to the outer room, and so poison the air. By so doing, it would trap the CO and in the process produce triple heat that would eventually maximize on time by producing food at half the time that the normal stove would have done.

I noted two advantages here, the stove would limit the time to produce food. Two, the stove would absorb carbon-monoxide and thus avoid poisonous gases from escaping. When i asked the exhibitors whose idea this had come from, i was told it came from a university in New Jersey, USA.
So i asked myself these two questions- one, why would a university in USA think of developing a stove that would not benefit her larger community in USA?
Two, why did our universities not come up with this innovative idea to benefit her own people from Africa?

What is wrong with our universities?
Is it about misplaced curricular? Is it about inadequate research funding? Or is it about mismanagement of university resources allocated for research and innovation?

Evans Kipngeno's picture

Brothers from Africa, where are you? we need to discuss and bring up subjects for the conference discussions on research and development.
It would be good for you to be informed that until Africa is involved in her own research and innovation, there will not be any education for sustainable development in Africa. Please be informed.

We need our own scholars to be involved in our own research challenges that face our continent. That is why we are today asking ourselves these hard questions - where have our professors and lectures in innovation and research gone to?

In Kenya here recently one professor, was awarded honor for being the best researcher in Africa, reason for the award? that he came up with natural dye for textile industry, I say congratulations professor, but where are the textile industries that would then use your dye here?
Secondly, where are our researcher students in this field.

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