Nairobi set to host the Innovation Africa 2016 event come September

The Innovation Africa 2016, is set to take place from 20th to 22nd September 2016 at the Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya.

The event is set to attract ministers and government officials. More than 30 African countries will be represented at the summit, allowing industry leaders and investors to engage in pre-scheduled meetings with ministers and officials.

Now in its 6th year, the summit will be a hive of activity as 200 government officials comprising of ministers, secretaries of state, deputy ministers, permanent secretaries and director generals are joined by board level members from some of the world's leading education & tech companies including Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Bi-Bright, JP - inspiring knowledge, Positivo BGH, Teachers Media International, Pearson & Wiley amongst others.

To date education & ICT ministers along with numerous high-level representatives are confirmed from the following countries:-

Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Nigeria& Zimbabwe with this list increasing every day.

Innovation Africa was conceived and is organised by AfricanBrains, a division of the international Brains Network Group who are dedicated to attracting investment into education and technology in Africa through building public-private partnerships. Previous events have taken place in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana, Rwanda and last year in Uganda.

This year the summit is held under the official patronage of the Kenyan Ministry of Education, Science & Technology and hosted by Cabinet Secretary Hon Fred Matiang'i.In his patronage letter addressed to John Glassey, MD of AfricanBrains, Cabinet Secretary Hon Fred Matiang'i stated, "This will be the main education and ICT summit held under the patronage of the ministry in 2016."

He added, "We are delighted that Africa's number one high-level forum for education, ICT and innovation will be taking place in Kenya this year. On behalf of the Government we will be working closely with AfricanBrains to ensure an event of the quality that is the continent's largest annual gathering of ministers for education, higher education, ICT and science & technology."

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EON Reality introduces Virtual Reality based learning Centre to South Africa, first in Africa

EON Reality, a Virtual Reality based knowledge transfer solution for industry, education, and edutainment, in partnership with the city of Tshwane announced the inauguration of EON Reality’s Tshwane Interactive Digital Centre (IDC).

 The IDC is a central part of Tshwane’s long term plan, Tshwane Vision 2055, to “break the cycle of generational poverty, inequality, and underdevelopment” as well as to enhance the local business and investment climate in South Africa’s capital city.

 With the global Augmented and Virtual Reality markets expected to reach 150 billion dollars, content creation has to expand to keep up with local and global consumer’s needs. The IDC will establish a local Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality ecosystem in Tshwane and its Entrepreneur School that will help to develop skilled local entrepreneurs.

“We’re extremely excited to partner with the City of Tshwane and build an IDC in South Africa,” said Dan Lejerskar, Chairman of EON Reality. “We fervently believe that knowledge is a human right and this aligns perfectly with Tshwane’s goal for greater income equality, creating jobs, and improving educational opportunities.”

Dave Lockwood, Director, Tshwane IDC says that, “virtual and augmented reality has huge potential across the whole of Africa, as a way to support, but also to transform how we learn complex subjects, such as vocational skills at college and maths and science at school. Language barriers, as well as low literacy levels, tend to reduce how we understand what is being said and taught. By showing a concept, in a way that we can also play with it means that we can “see” what is been taught, hence, we can understand it better and also remember it much longer.

Not only will the IDC enhance the local business climate and create jobs, the content and applications created by the Tshwane IDC will help with vocational skills transfer and improve local STEM education. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality applications improve education and successfully address the issues of illiteracy and language barriers by showing rather than telling. This hands on educational approach helps all students perform better in the classroom by making learning more engaging, improving retention, and building experiences to be recalled rather than memorising facts.

“Virtual Reality based knowledge transfer will be crucial to the future of education in South Africa, particularly in Tshwane. As a Capital City, Tshwane is often confronted with difficult policy choices given the limited financial resources and competing service delivery needs. To this end, the City has taken a policy position to prioritise investments linked to education and development of young people. This explains our quest for state of the art technologies that assists the City to ignite excellence when delivering services. The Interactive Digital Centre will propel vocational skills training and development to unprecedented levels in South Africa,” concludes Dumisani Otumile, Group Chief Information Officer for the City of Tshwane.

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Rwanda actively engaging in telemedicine ahead of other african nations

Telemedicine is a form of electronic health that involves the use of telecommunication and information technologies to provide clinical healthcare from a distance.

In an enclosed room at Rwanda Military Hospital in Kanombe, students listen attentively to instructions from a video interaction. This is part of their medical training, a session that allows them to interface with senior health professionals from top countries around the world. However, this practice is not entirely limited to teaching future doctors. On the opposite side of this hospital building, medics gather in a conference room to discuss sophisticated cases with other doctors from different hospitals who have more knowledge on the issues.

This is telemedicine; a trend of offering medical services that started as early as 2011 at Rwanda Military Hospital. The aim of this new approach was to improve student training and consequently medical service delivery through regular consultation of experts on advanced medical cases.

"Everyone is involved nowadays; it is part of the medical practice. Medical students follow the training in real time but the technology applies even in medical procedures. You could be having a patient here in Rwanda but get guidance from other countries," says Dr Pacifique Mugenzi, the head of research and education at Rwanda Military Hospital.

Dr Mugenzi, who is also a trained oncologist, adds that at least once a week, doctors at the hospital meet to discuss complicated cases with other doctors, eventually deriving useful solutions.

"We have discussed surgical cases, gynaecological cases and I recall a liver case where we deliberated about its management. Many issues are involved in these discussions but most of them revolve around surgery," adds Dr Mugenzi.

Unlike the ordinary practice that requires patients to interface with doctors face-to-face, barriers of access to medical services such as long distance are not involved in telemedicine, meaning that medical services that would be unavailable in some distant communities can be provided.

Dr Mugenzi adds that currently the Rwanda Military Hospital is using telemedicine to train undergraduate and post-graduate doctors from the country to solve the problem of distance and travel costs required for physical presence.

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African Union to launch electronic passport at next Summit

Addis Ababa — The African Union (AU) is prepared to launch the electronic passport (e-Passport) at the next AU Summit due to take place in July this year in Kigali, Rwanda.

The first group of beneficiaries will include: AU Heads of State and Government; Ministers of Foreign Affairs; and the Permanent Representatives of AU Member States based at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa, according to an AU statement Tuesday.

The AU e-Passports will be issued to them in July at the 27th AU Summit in Kigali, revealed the statement.


Issuance of the e-passport is expected to pave the way for the Member States to adopt and ratify the necessary Protocols and Legislation with the view to begin issuing the much expected African passport, it added.

The initiative, first agreed upon in 2014, falls squarely within the framework of Africa's Agenda 2063, and has the specific aim of facilitating free movement of persons, goods and services around the continent so as to foster intra-Africa trade, integration and socio-economic development, according to the statement.

Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Chairperson of the AU Commission, called the initiative a "steady step toward the objective of creating a strong, prosperous and integrated Africa, driven by its own citizens and capable of taking its rightful place on the world stage."

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Makerere University expands research to Energy

Makerere University has opened an East African Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency as part of efforts to increase research and innovation in alternative energy sources in the region.

The initiative is supported by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation and the Austrian Development Agency.

Uganda recently launched two innovative energy efficient projects, the solar-powered Kayoola bus and the Kiira EV car.

"The centre is mandated to contribute to increased access to modern, affordable and reliable energy services," said Irene Muloni, Uganda's Minister for Energy and Minerals, at the launch of the centre at Makerere University in Kampala.

The increasing threat of global warming is fostering more innovation and investment in cleaner energy alternatives for lighting and transport systems. It is this investment potential that the centre is hoping to tap into.

Innovations and competition have driven down energy costs, as solar photo cells and wind energy are now among the cheapest electricity sources in many countries.

While much attention has been paid to Uganda's prospects of becoming a mass producer of solar-powered buses, the launch of the Kayoola bus has thrust the country into the limelight, with Kiira Motors Corporation saying their product could spur more innovations in the energy industry.

Uganda is keen on promoting the use of solar as it seeks to expand rural electrification. While much emphasis has been given to undertaking huge hydro projects, the government is starting to prioritise solar power projects.

Solar power is not a new concept in the country as a number of households with no connection to the electricity grid have opted to install solar panels on top of their houses for their power needs.

Other renewable energy sources include bio-mass, wind energy, geothermal and hydropower.

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Zimbabwe High School pupils first to design a car in the whole world

Prince Edward High School pupils in Harare have written a piece of history for the institution after becoming the first secondary school in the world to design a car, set to be manufactured in two years' time. seeThis

The 20 students, all in Upper Sixth, with the assistance of science and technical department lecturers, have since formed a company that is being registered.

The project, headed by Ms Princess Mushonga, is bankrolled by Book of African Records in collaboration with a local insurance firm, Sanctuary Insurance Company.

Kits for the vehicle, to be called Macintosh Curlybyte, will be imported.

Lecturers from the science and technical departments are assisting the pupils while technical support and insight is offered by experts from the motor industry and commerce.

Officially launching the project and the company, to be called Prince Edward Automobile, district education officer in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education Ms Anatoria Ncube said the ministry was fully behind the project.
"We are fully behind them because it is the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education's thrust to equip our learners with relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes to enable them to create employment for themselves in a sustainable manner," said Ms Ncube.
Speaking at the same occassion, Prince Edward School head Mr Agrippa Sora said the car initiative was a quest to relate school life to real life.

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Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) unveils Africa's fastest computer.

Pretoria — Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor has congratulated the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) on unveiling Africa's fastest computer. The supercomputer named Lengau is dubbed Africa's fastest computer. It was unveiled at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research's CHPC on Tuesday. Lengau is a Setswana name for a cheetah, which is the fastest animal in the wild. The computer has a processing speed capable of a thousand-trillion floating point operations per second. Floating point operations or flops are used in computing to calculate extremely long numbers. Being the fastest computer in Africa, the Lengau now gives scientists in the research, technology and innovation space an opportunity to conduct their research locally without having to travel abroad for higher performance computing infrastructure. In simple terms, the computer, built in collaboration with Dell South Africa, is approximately 40 000 times faster than the normal Dell i3 processor laptop that is used by many South Africans at home and at work. Minister Pandor has commended the CHPC on the computer. "I congratulate the CSIR and the CHPC on this quantum leap in support of South African science, especially data-intense research programmes like the Square Kilometre Array. "The launch of this peta-scale computing facility in South Africa is evidence, again, of our determination to be globally competitive in certain areas of science and to make the necessary investments, and of the competence of South African scientists and engineers to develop, implement and maintain such cutting-edge technologies," Minister Pandor said. The CHPC's previous system, named "Tsessebe" (Setswana for "antelope") had a peak performance of 24.9 teraflops and was number 311 on the list of the world's top 500 supercomputers and was ranked number one in Africa. High-performance computing and advanced data technologies are regarded as powerful tools for enhancing the competiveness of regions and nations.

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South Africa's Department of Science and Technology has released the National Strategy for Multiwavelength Astronomy

The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has released the National Strategy for Multiwavelength Astronomy, which is intended to allow South Africa to take full advantage of its geographical advantages, and to maximise the return on investment made in astronomy. Developed in a consultative process involving the astronomy community, the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the DST, the strategy highlights the current status of astronomy in South Africa and its importance to the country's socio-economic landscape. The Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor, says astronomy is a field in which Africa has traditions stretching back thousands of years. The development of astronomy in Africa over the past decade has been phenomenal. South Africa is now in a remarkable era of astronomy, hosting the Southern Africa Large Telescope (SALT) and part of the iconic Square Kilometre Array (SKA), which are among the world's biggest astronomy projects. The country's advantages include its geographic location, with access to the southern skies, high-level government support, infrastructure investments, dark skies and radio-quiet zones. "The time is ripe for a National Strategy for Multiwavelength Astronomy to ensure that we can exploit these advantages to the full - delivering world-class research, driving transformation, and adding major value to the knowledge economy of South Africa through human capital development and technological spin-offs," says Minister Naledi Pandor. The strategy also sets out strategic objectives and a strategic agenda defined by the key priority areas for astronomy, and outlines relevant cross-cutting support programmes needed to give effect to the vision. It also guides the DST and NRF in their work in astronomy and related endeavours. The NRF has developed an implementation plan for the strategy - also in close consultation with the research community - which outlines the proposed programmatic focus and consequent financial implications for astronomy initiatives in South Africa. The roll-out of the plan will be jointly considered on an ongoing basis between the NRF and the DST, taking into account available financial allocations and the level of support for astronomy in this regard. While the strategy and plan were being developed, the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST) was commissioned by the DST to carry out a scientometric study on astronomy research outputs. The study shows that South Africa's research output in astronomy and astrophysics has grown and increased in global ranking, demonstrating excellent scientific returns on the investments made in astronomy. The Minister thanked the NRF, experts and the astronomy community for their valuable contributions to the development of these instruments.

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