By Beverly Bizeki
Great Zimbabwe University received a cash injection of US$20 000 from Old Mutual Group Holdings as seed money for its National Centre of Excellence for Computational Intelligence and Actuarial Sciences launched recently.
Group Chief Executive Officer Sam Matsekete said the seed was a fulfillment of the pledge of commitment Old Mutual had with the university to promote research targeted at specific areas identified by the industry.
“We at Old Mutual pledged to work with Great Zimbabwe University and other universities to promote research that is targeted at specific areas identified by industry and commerce. We believe this is one way to demonstrate that we respect the role that universities and other Institutions of Higher Learning play.
“As we gave our commitment to partner you (GZU) in these collaborative efforts, I am pleased to officially handover to the university a cheque of US$20 000 being seed money to set up the University’s National centre of Excellence,” said Matsekete.
Matsekete said Institutions of Higher Learning play an important role in coming up with new ideas and urged other industry captains to join the group in mobilizing resources required for completion of the centre.
“Whist we run the current machines, we need Institutions of Higher Learning to innovate newer and better machines to develop better ideas, test new thinking and extend the frontiers of knowledge.
“I invite industry captains to join Old Mutual in this noble initiative to mobilise resources required to buid a fully-fledged centre so that we fund the research that can take us forward whilst setting in motion the collaboration between universities and industry.
Speaking at the launch of the centre GZU’s Professor Benard Chazovachii who was acting Vice Chancellor said the centre was an answer to the country’s dying culture of savings which is detrimental to national development.
“GZU and Old Mutual have partnered to establish this national center as a direct response to decades long deterioration of the Zimbabwean culture of saving. This multidisciplinary center will spearhead academic scholarship, research and innovation meant to unlock the value of financial resources and solve the in-country problem of poor savings which has hindered national development,” said Prof Chazovachii.
Prof Chazovachii said the intellectual capital from the centre will help in the cause of industrialization through creation of new products, processes and organisations to strengthen the country’s long term resilience to national and regional economic shocks.
He also highlighted that the university had recruited its initial workforce for a new venture, GZU Mining venture in its commitment to harness resources and intellectual capital to generate tangible economic prosperity.
