The main aim of this blog is to communicate science here in Botswana. Botswana is a best example of a developing nation, just like most countries in Africa. Scientific research and development (Sc R&D) are still at some early stage here due to various reasons but mainly research funds are the root problems. In Botswana, one would agree with me that human resources are currently better compared to a decade ago. No doubt, Sc R&D is expensive and risky to attract investors and financial institutes who are solely after profit. Due to this, there is a great cynic behaviour among African governments towards funding their research and innovation dreams in a collective manner. For example, there are action plans to carry out research and innovation resulting from the AU member states (Scidev, 31 January 2007). However, the major road block was on how to fund this action plan? Then, a name was put in place, pleading for all AU member countries to contribute towards the African Science and Innovation Fund.
However, the good news is that there is now a growing interest from overseas donors to try and improve developing nations to solve their problems. The great part of this news is the fact that they are not just bringing fish but nests to teach us how to fish. There is a new consciousness among investors says Tim Sanders from his Saving the World at Work book; most investors and big companies, within and abroad have minced their business with positively changing the lives of those who are in need. They are willing to fund major projects in developing countries, to take the risks that some of the commercial sectors are afraid to take to make sure that developing nations are not sidelined of the benefits of Sc R&D.
A good example of this is demonstrated by The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation (B&MGF). In 2008, this foundation awarded US$100 million for developing nations’ scientists to work on their ideas in solving various health problems posed by the so called forgotten diseases like malaria. The way I understand it is that; the science is the same to elsewhere, but the idea of these move is to fund those ideas that are considered risky, or not possible. In his interview published from Scidev 3 November 2008, the executive director of the B&MGF, Tadataka Yamada said that scientists need to submit just a two page proposal addressing a certain health problem and there are no preliminary data required. If your idea succeeds from a panel of reviewers, your project will get funded. He further gave an example of a simple project that they funded; being one that someone used a house as bait for trapping mosquitoes.
As the author of this post, I was left wondering if organisations like African Science and Innovation cannot benefit from such foundations upon submission of their missions and visions.
The next post is going to focus on free scientific literature databases known as open access databases that can be very useful to scientists in developing nations like here in Botswana.
Stay tuned,
Win
Allscientificbotswana’s Blog Updates.
Allscientificbotswana’s blog just got a new-look! After all, why inviting people for a dinner without putting a new look on your dinner table? It isn’t cool hey?
Right, now its a great time for my guests to arrive and take part here. All here all are welcome 
Next week, I will raise the subject of funding. How can we improve the interests of private sector, wake up the governments into scientific research and development funding. Availability of overseas donors will be looked at, their requirements and interests in developing countries like Botswana.
Stay Tuned, and you welcome any comment and features.
Contact me at lopson.kay(at)gmail.com
Hello world!
This is a place where we meet as Batswana and
discuss research, development, health news and
all other scientific sectors that may take our
country somewhere. Botswana is one of the
countries with a lot of highly qualified individuals
regarding Science, Engineering and Medicine.
Most of these individuals are qualified from prestigious universities around the world.
With such capacity, one will expect the country,
Botswana to be in the forefront when it comes to
science and development, which is not the case.
The question is…what is going wrong? what does
everyone know? where do we want to be?
The main aim of this blog is to pool everyone with
a little knowledge in the areas of their qualifications
to share some ideas and build our future- vision 2016
