According to the Executive Secretary of the Inter-University Council of East Africa (IUCEA) Professor Mayunga Nkunya, more than 250 delegates from the Partner States have confirmed to attend the two-day Forum.
“We are expecting a very high turn-out and looking forward to very vibrant and constructive discussions,” he added.
The delegates are drawn from the EAC Secretariat and Institutions, heads of higher education institutions, national commissions and councils for higher education, and national commissions and councils for science and technology , government institutions and ministries, international organizations, NGOs, academicians, students, private individuals, businessmen, media and stakeholders in academia and the private and public sectors in the Partner States.
The IUCEA, East African Business Council (EABC) and East African Development Bank (EADB) have jointly organized this year’s Forum under the theme: “Harnessing East Africa’s Innovation Potential”.
The Forum will mainly focus on generating inputs for enriching the regional research and innovation capacity building programme currently under development.
It is geared towards coming up with practical strategies for implementing the programme on supporting the development of academia-public-private partnership platforms in the EAC sectors strategic to socio-economic development and supporting private sector linked postgraduate training at Masters and PhD levels and postdoctoral schemes.
The Executive Director of EABC Mr Andrew Luzze said that the Forum would also look at developing and coordinating human resource skilling and re-skilling activities and supporting the development of regional cluster-based research and innovation projects linked to postgraduate training, focused on the development of SMEs, resource value addition, and development of appropriate knowledge, skills and competences among graduates.
“In order to benchmark the East African initiative with what is happening in other parts of the world, apart from East African experts, resource people have been invited from other African countries, Europe and Asia for the Forum,” stated Mr Luzze.
The Forum will consist of three keynote presentations by prominent individuals from Nigeria, South Africa and Singapore indicating their countrys’ experiences.
This will be followed by a presentation and discussion of study results on the higher education landscape, and research and innovation capacity building initiatives in East Africa.
The studies have been carried out as part of implementation of 2013 Forum resolutions in Nairobi, Republic of Kenya.
The presentation will then be followed by two roundtable discussion sessions, each of which will consist of two groups that will dialogue on specific themes relevant to the objectives of the Forum.
Concurrently during the Forum, over 30 higher education institutions, private sector institutions, government institutions and other stakeholders from the Partner States will also exhibit their products and programmes.
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