The Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (BUAN) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), with a local innovation lab, TheNeoHub.
Speaking during the signing ceremony, TheNeoHub Founder and Director, Zindzi Montshwari Letsididi said as an innovation lab, TheNeoHub aims to provide a one-stop-shop for innovative entrepreneurs and propel them to be sustainable key players recognized locally and globally.
“Furthermore, we strongly believe that to fully optimize our mandate we cannot do it alone, it is important for us to get into partnership with institutions such as BUAN whose mission is to produce market-ready graduates for the agriculture and natural resources sectors,” said Letsididi.
Letsididi emphasised that technology in agriculture represents an important input that is essential for scaling up productivity levels and, therefore, TheNeoHub is committed to making a significant contribution to the agricultural value chain through promoting technology and innovation.
She said through the partnership with BUAN, TheNeoHub believes it can make collective efforts towards building sustainable innovations.
“Your next google or Airbnb in the agricultural value chain or an agritech startup solving a Fintech problem and making an inter-sectoral contribution to the economy could come from a BUAN graduate,” Letsididi said.
For his part, BUAN Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Jasper Rees said it was easy to sign the MoU but the difficult part is implementation, saying he was hopeful the agreement will be implemented fully from both sides.
Dr. Rees said his institution aimed to play a critical role in diversifying the economy by producing innovative graduates who can venture into entrepreneurship.
BUAN’s partnership with TheNeoHub is meant to facilitate capacity building on BUAN graduates who are into entrepreneurship to take their businesses to the next level.
“Partnerships like these thrive on personalities and thrive on having exciting people on both sides and I look forward to seeing this flourish in the most amazing way,” said BUAN Vice-Chancellor.
