A seminar series on knowledge and innovation for development in honor of Prof. Juma, the founder of ACTS, was successfully launched on 12th August 2021.
The inaugural seminar series, jointly organized by ACTS and the Calestous Juma Legacy Foundation (CJLF) focused on ‘Re-igniting Africa’s Industrialization Through Innovation’. It attracted more than 200 online participants.
The two-day event featured an insightful keynote address by Prof. Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka of the African Development Bank (AfDB) on the first day. The keynote focused on key themes relating to industrialization in Africa: the renewed debate on industrialization, the reason for the continent’s poor industrialization record and consequences of relying on natural resources. From the keynote, key challenges facing Africa’s industrialization were highlighted. These are: dependence on natural resources, limited local manufacturing, increased concentration of industrial activity specialized in high value added activities and serving international markets and high dependence on imports - reflecting uneven manufacturing and innovation capabilities.
The second day focused on innovation and renewable electrification in developing countries with key insights on important opportunities for local economic development. The discussions were based on a study on the Innovation and Renewable Electrification in Kenya (IREK) project “Building Innovation Capabilities for Sustainable Industrialization: Renewable Electrification in Developing Economies”.
Speakers proposed a raft of key recommendations which exhorted African countries to pursue an active industrial strategy; build sectoral innovation and production systems for better health, enhance contributions of the informal economy to industrialization, enact policies that strengthen innovation and technological capabilities in informal enterprises and develop strategies to enhance local participation in global renewable value chains.
The late Prof. Juma: a world renowned scientist who strongly believed in the power of leveraging STI to transform national economies and accelerate social progress.
“This is the first collaborative event organized by ACTS and CJLF to keep CJs dream alive by creating a platform that will elicit discussions around knowledge and innovation for development”- Prof. Tom Ogada, Executive Director, ACTS
“Calestous has been many things to many people; but for us at ACTS, we saw him and continue to see him as an intellectual giant who made the youth of Africa proud in his accomplishments in the spheres of science, technology and innovation” - Prof. Alfred Oteng-Yeboah, Chair, ACTS Governing Council
“We plan to continue participating and hosting similar seminars to enhance expansion of technology and innovation knowledge and work together with ACTS in producing some outputs from these sorts of conversations” - Angela Christiana, Executive Director, CJLF.
Participants’ Reactions
“Great series of presentations on the neglected issue of local capacity building in renewable development in the region” - Stephen Karekezi
“Thank you for organizing this meaningful lecture series” - Yuna Choi, South Korea
“As a graduate student, Prof. Juma constantly encouraged me to reimagine the role of universities as engines of economic development and renewal with a focus on Africa" - Martin Mbaya, Kenya.
