African Journal Of Science Technology Innovation And Development

Even a subsistence agricultural economy such as Rwanda needs to develop science, technology and innovation (STI) capacity if it hopes to solve such everyday, practical problems as providing energy and clean drinking water to rural villages, and competing in the global economy by producing and selling higher value goods and services. This book provides new insights into the capacity building process and shows that STI capacity building is not a luxury activity suitable primarily for wealthy countries but an absolute necessity for poor countries that hope to become richer.

Information, knowledge, and technology occupy significant space in the information and knowledge society and ongoing debates on development such as sustainable development goals (SDGs) agenda 2030 and the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). Disruptive technologies and cyber-physical systems, obscuring the lines between the physical, digital and biological, escalated by the COVID-19 pandemic, present a ‘new normal’ that profoundly affects the nature and magnitude of responses required to sustain and benefit from the new developments. Africa, known for its late adoption of new technologies and innovations, is leapfrogging development stages in several enviable ways. This book, Information knowledge and technology for development in Africa’, written by eminent African scholars, comprises chapters that satisfactorily address information access, artificial intelligence, information ethics, e-learning, library and information science education (LISE) in the 4IR, data literacy and e-scholarship, and knowledge management, which are increasingly essential for information access, services, and LISE in Africa. We expect the book to support research, teaching and learning in African higher education and worldwide for comparative scholarship.

This book examines how disruptive technologies and innovation underpin the attainment of a broader development agenda in Africa. Contributors show how distinctive forms of technological innovation can impact critical development processes. For example, disruptive technologies can deepen the ongoing democratic and governance waves in Africa, specifically in the area of contested elections. Similarly, innovations in agriculture, the environment and energy promote changes in value chain agriculture, and the use of sensors to manage e-waste and sustainable energy conservation are also transforming established practices. Furthermore, the role of disruptive technologies and innovation in education, health, financial services and the nature of paid work cannot be ignored. Individually and collectively, the authors discuss and highlight the mechanisms and initiatives that can contribute to the realization of the development goals of African countries, especially in a period where disruptive technologies are rapidly changing how things are done. As a result, this book, which represents one of the most recent systematic efforts to bring together dialogue on disruptive technologies in Africa, will be of particular use and benefit to a wide and an eclectic audience.

The volume analyses major strategic and policy issues. How to make Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policies relevant for inclusive growth strategies in Africa so that socio-economic transformation strategies will take off. The first part discusses the issues of human skills development as part of STI policies, based on visions, strategic plans and country cases (for Cameroon, Nigeria and Mauritania). The second part looks at STI Policies for Economic Transformation, focussing on country case studies (for Egypt and Tunisia). A third part presents book reviews and book notes.

The term BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is gaining global attention both in scholarly and popular discourse. BRICS countries are crucial in terms of their vast areas, huge population and have massive economic potential. These countries are also categorized as developing countries and are aspiring to be considered as developed countries. There is commonality among these countries in that they have similar issues and problems, which may require common solutions. Science, Technology and Innovation in BRICS Countries examines whether more emphasis on Science Technology and Innovation (STI) capability building could be the solution to these countries’ economic upgradation and poverty reduction. This book is a collection of various Science Technology and Innovation (STI) issues of BRICS economics, and will be of interest to general readers, scholars working in this field, as well as policy makers all over the globe. The contributions come from various scholars across the globe who have published their BRICS economics research in a special issue of the African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development.

Innovation Ecosystems in Africa aims to deepen and broaden the visibility and interrogation of African innovation systems in practice by offering unique analysis of the emergence, growth and future prospects of endogenous innovation practices and lessons across the continent. The stories depict systemic innovations in a range of critical development areas from health and education to leadership and entrepreneurialism, and span from North to South, and East to West, covering more than a dozen different African cities and countries. In addition to sharing knowledge about exciting but rarely acknowledged cases of innovation in Africa, the book serves also as a work to inform policymakers and practitioners throughout Africa on how to learn from experiences towards developing more enabling innovation ecosystems to nurture creativity and solve the problems that we have. This book provides policymakers, business and opinion leaders both inspiration and useful policy takeaways that can guide strategies and support concrete measures to foster and speed up the pace of developmentally impactful innovation on the continent. Innovation Ecosystems in Africa builds upon the work of the African Innovation Summit (AIS), by further examining how the innovation systems environments in Africa function (or not) to address the most basic conditions of socio-economic and institutional development required on the continent. In this volume, learning case studies identified alongside the second Africa Innovation Summit (Kigali, June 2018) examine various sectoral exemplars and transversal dimensions to help inform insights about how policymakers and practitioners might develop more effective and impactful innovation-driven strategies, ecosystems and enterprises. This edited collection uses multi-country, cross-sectoral case studies to advance an empirically grounded, appreciative investigation of how innovation is being used to address fundamental development challenges on the continent, and how the African innovation ecosystems could be made more enabling into the future.