Fostering Innovation And Leadership In The African Academy

Fostering Innovation and Leadership in the African Academy: A pathway for personal transformation College students and new lecturers in most sub-Saharan African countries face a great deal of challenges. These range from poor financial support to inadequate technology and resources. Despite these and other challenges, however, Fostering Innovation and Leadership in the African Academy suggests that students and educators alike can succeed in their research and academic endeavours, continue to remain fulfilled, and maximize their potential. Through this book, Dr. Obidimma Ezezika provides solid, tried and tested advice and presents ways for one to become a fulfilled and high-achieving academic within a system that poses many challenges and in which the odds for success are relatively slim. Most of the ideas in the book emerged from Dr. Ezezika's ten years of experience providing workshops and consulting engagements to students and educators in various universities and secondary schools in Africa and North America. This book will teach you practical tools that you can easily apply to your life to enhance your personal and professional development. Dr. Ezezika lays out a set of guidelines that, if followed, will support the aspiring scholar in navigating through various challenges. And, for many, these guidelines could make the difference between success and failure. There is rapid economic growth occurring in many African countries today. His hope is that this boom will also be felt among the school corridors. There is no shortage of bright minds in Africa, Dr. Ezezika argues, but quality education is the missing link. African academies have much to offer in terms of fostering innovation and building the next generation of leaders. This book seeks to show that it is what we do with what we already have that can really set the trajectory of our lives and academies.

The rapidly evolving nature of emerging technologies, and the transformative and disruptive tendencies offered by these are reshaping professional activities, operations and functions as well as value creation.

Is accounting as a first course going extinct? What motivates students’ choice of accounting as a career? How true is it that if you are not chartered, you are not an accountant? These are few of the questions that this book responds to. It is an orientation tool for intending students, students, lecturers/tutors, researchers, practitioners, policy makers, parents and the general public on the neglected story of accounting profession. It is written with the sole aim of enlightening its reader on who accountants are; career paths of accountants and their role in society; providing information to assist students in deciding a choice of career in the field of accounting. It places emphasis on the role-relevance of tertiary institutions in the development of accountants with robust acumen. This book opens up on the unsung story of the accounting profession, bringing to the fore the fact that the profession has emerged with three wings, that is practice, policy and research. As we continue to face an increasingly competitive market, the need to produce graduates with requisite knowledge and skill competence to fill vacancies in industries, which are faced with apparent economic circumstances are overwhelming. Howbeit, while it may be acceptable to find a meantime solution, a long term sustainable solution is better, which is to focus on breeding efficient, effective and productive accountants, who can sustain the objectives and goals of the going concern. Tertiary institutions must not underestimate the need to concentrate energy on creating awareness, arming graduates with necessary knowledge and skills on elements of accounting profession, which is a better way out to solve the problem rather than the fire brigade approach to salvage the situation. As the industry look up to institutions to step up the game, we must wow them by producing graduate accountants who will not only be able to practice, but also can in their circumference engage with policy issues and research in the work place environment for increased and sustainable productivity.

Encouraged by the emergence and early impact of social innovators on the African Continent, but frustrated by the slow pace of large scale change, this book is focused on filling the knowledge gap for those tackling Africa’s serious social problems. It lays out the required building blocks for achieving scale at impact. By creating clear mission, vision, and values statements and piloting and rolling out business models that are demand-driven, simple, and low-cost, with compelling measurement and evaluation tools that leverage technology. It also explores the steps for attracting and retaining talent and financing and forming strategic partnerships with the private, public and non-profit sectors to foster scaling. Practical case studies provide inspiration for those who seek to become innovators or to be employed by them. Finally, it outlines the crucial steps for key stakeholders to take in order to support the emergence of more social innovators on the African continent, create an enabling environment for the scaling of high-impact initiatives and advance collective efforts to build stronger communities for current and future generations. This is a practical and inspirational guide for all entrepreneurs and individuals that seek to combine business and social goals and for those in the public, private and non-profit sectors that aim to foster and support these projects.

In this book, Florence Wambugu and Daniel Kamanga of Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International bring together expert African authorities to critique various biotechnology initiatives and project future developments in the field in Africa. For the first time, African voices from multidisciplinary fields as diverse as economics, agriculture, biotechnology, law, politics and academia, demand to be allowed to set the continent’s biotech development agenda. This book argues that there is a great future for biotechnology in Africa which sidesteps western interests that do not match those of the local populace. In these diverse chapters, Africa’s political and scientific leaders demand a greater say in how research and development funds are allocated and spent. They argue that Africa’s political leaders must see both clear benefits and have elbow-room to drive the change required. This is the way that African governments can employ workable policies, suitable biosafety legislation and regulation and respond effectively to public-private partnerships. Wambugu and Kamanga show that biotechnology has the potential to improve food security and standard of living as well as mitigate the detrimental effects of climate change on the African continent.

Analysing the trends that are emerging in sport enterprises such as advancements in technology and social media, the authors of this illuminating book tackle the issue of how to create new opportunities in such a changing industry. Providing valuable reading for sports business scholars, this book draws on examples from inventive companies as well as inspirational sports leaders and illustrates the various drivers behind innovation. Addressing the need for a culture of innovation within sports enterprises, the authors reveal sustainable ways for companies to stay ahead of the game in an increasingly competitive global sport market.

There is an ongoing transition in the research enterprise towards Open Science (OS), increasing transparency in researchers’ collaboration, knowledge exchange, and how science is organized. The Open Access (OA) movement can be seen as a case study of the challenges that this transition can present. For example, despite all the advantages of OA and the fact that the concept is exceptionally strong as a principle, it is yet to be implemented across all institutions, particularly in Africa. Even though research productivity from the African continent has increased over the last two decades, the global north still dominates the scholarly communication and publication sphere. High article processing charges (APCs) can make it difficult for some African researchers to publish in highly rated- and respected academic journals, which are critical to their career advancement. Fee waivers and discounts are available but eligibility and percentages vary by publisher and predatory publishing presents a challenge to African researchers. In addition, the exclusion of many African publication sources from the major bibliographic databases such as Scopus and the Web of Science skews and limits bibliometric analysis and influences the outcomes of world university rankings. This Research Topic aims to investigate the transition to OS in the African continent. This will include researchers' and other stakeholders’ (support services, policy makers) concerns regarding OS as well as the advantages it offers them. Moreover, the role of new technologies is also of interest in the implementation of OA as it is the knowledge divide between different countries and regions. It is also crucial to address what needs to change in the research enterprise to make OS a worthwhile venture/practice for most researchers and research role-players and how they can cope with the contradictory challenges.