This is because universities, research and technology transfer institutions deal directly with knowledge and information generation as their core activities the Communication, Science and Technology minister said. She was speaking at a workshop on Intellectual Property (IP) at the University of Botswana yesterday. She said countries such as the UK have recognised and fostered linkages between their universities and economy. She asserted that the exploitation of IP has become central in the current debates on development. She explained that the developed world as defined by the eight richest nations, has moved into the knowledge economy using universities and research councils as the base for creating knowledge. She stated that IP is at the heart of knowledge economy and in the US 75 percent of the value of publicly traded companies are in intangible assets while in Europe the figure ranges from 40 to 60 percent. "What this means is that, the world is undergoing total economic transformation, whereby wealth is no longer measured in physical assets but rather in intellectual property. Manufacturing and all forms of economic production are increasingly becoming IP based," Venson-Moitoi said. Venson-Moitoi stated that the government in the UK is the main funding body for the country's universities and technology transfer institutions. The UK government has recently placed a new requirement that these public bodies should include an entrepreneurial section in their academic programmes as a way of demonstrating their social responsibility to the public.
The minister challenged the UB and the national research organisations such as the Botswana Technology Centre (BOTEC), Rural Industries Promotion Company (RIPCO) and the National Food Technology Research Centre (NAFTEC) to collaborate with industrialists so that research outputs from their laboratories might reach the final consumers. "What good is research if it does not eventually address specific technical or scientific problems? Batswana expect that what can be obtained elsewhere should also be seen to be taking place here at home," Venson-Moitoi said.Her concern arises from the realisation that developing countries, especially in Africa lag behind the developed world in the exploitation of IP. "We therefore expect our knowledge based institutions to take the lead in this endeavour, focusing on the development of IP for the small business sector that dominates Botswana's economic landscape," she said.
