The Vice Chancellor of the Botswana International University of Science and Technology(BIUST) told media stakeholders during a whirlwind tour on campus that the limited amount of money invested in research and development for industrial development stalled the development process.
Professor Otlogetswe Totolo, Vice Chancellor of BIUST, said “No country in Africa spends more than 1% on research and development. However, the successful economies spend about 3-5% on research and development. The Toyota’s, Samsungs and Landrovers of this world did not come into being by chance. Things did not happen out of nowhere. It was not magic.”
He said, “You also need to understand that people will not give you money to achieve your agenda. The money for Research and Development(R & D) therefore needs to come from Botswana. If you do not spend more money on R and D you will not see more products Made in Botswana.”
Totolo revealed Botswana spends about 0.5% of GDP on research and development with neighbouring South Africa spending marginally more at 0.76%. He also highlighted the importance of innovation that transformed peoples living, especially in the community university resides amongst.
He shared that in line with its mandate to drive change through research and innovation as well as to ignite development through developing innovative products and services BIUST staff were engaged in a number of projects that would have far reaching consequences.
BIUST staff have developed a farmyard monitoring system that monitors stock coming into the gate of the farm by counting cattle as they enter and sharing information on various platforms like sms on your cellphone. It will enable farmers to be able to take pics of their livestock and allow owner to determine how many stock are missing without necessarily being physically present.
The Biological Sciences Department is studying scorpion venom to try to use it for medicinal purposes and looking at plants generally to see which ones can be used to extract oil.
The BIUST Department of Chemical and Forensic Science is working with the Botswana Police, Wildlife as well as Border control officials to collect evidence at crime scenes by conducting appropriate analysis and using scientific apparatus as well as looking at food samples to detect impurities or volatile components in blood samples amongst others.
The Physics Department is looking at soil samples of stakeholders to see whether they can be employed for building houses and in other instances to see whether land used by farmers is desirable for farming purposes. BIUST has also started working with Debswana to material analysis of stones etc to detect whether they have diamonds, in a bid to improve local capacity to search for diamonds.
BIUST also has state of the art geological and information system equipment that enables it to acquire spartial data about location and position. It is being used by university students for various purposes that are likely to have positive spinoffs for the country and its ambitious development agenda.
“I am doing research on land use change in Serowe between 2000–2018. I am using satellite images from Landset 8 equipment to see changes in land use patterns over this period. The information is useful for developmental purposes because landboards can use it to establish which lands are bare for new settlement areas,” said Kesaobaka Peter, a 4th Year Environmental Sciences Student at BIUST.
BIUST has also been designated by MOTE to host the AVN(African Very-long Baselines Project) which is the precursor to the mega SKA(Square Kilometre Array project) of which Botswana is one of 8 African countries. The eventual goal is to construct 80 15 mete radio telescopes, each valued at about 70 million Pula.
“This project will engage hundreds of local data scientists, engineers, computer scientists, astronomers and astrophysicists to accelerate the development sciences, engineering and technology capacity in Botswana as well as give Batswana access to forefront research on an equal footing with develop countries,” said Professor Gregory Campbell Hillhouse, Head of Department of Physics and Astronomy at BIUST.
