Beverly Bizeki
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has ordered Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube to finance innovation hubs and industrial parks in state universities to allow young people to see their inventions succeed in order to meet the developmental needs of the country.
Speaking during a tour of the Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) Innovation Hub at Robert Mugabe School of Education, Mnangagwa said the inventions were an important exercise and deserved government’s funding and support.
“The students who are producing these technological gadgets do not know how useful they are to us, in the second republic, we produce innovation hubs at every state university and this is the result of the philosophy of having innovation hubs where our talented girls and boys can exercise their dreams to produce goods and services and as you go round you will see the products being produced from fruits and herbs in our country.
“We used to think things must come from overseas but the younger generation must produce goods here and send them across the seas. In the past we used foreign currency to import these things but now it is happening locally and this is what we mean by having an innovation hub and Mthuli Ncube must fund these projects whether the fund produces goods or services they must allow our young people to dream and dream, succeed or fail but allow them to dream and produce domestic products,” said Mnangagwa.
In his keynote address, Mnangagwa also called upon the private sector and development agencies to partner with GZU in commercializing inventions.
“Similarly, I call upon the private sector and development agencies to partner with the university to accelerate the commercialization and adoption of inventions and products from our innovators.
“The application for registration of 15 trademarks in beverages, health supplements, skin products, wine and jam as well as patents for music instruments and two agro-innovations are welcome developments,” he said.
The hub was commissioned after the university’s graduation ceremony where 4899 students were capped by Mnangagwa.
