The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
THE Government has said that heritage based Education 5.0 is bearing fruits with industrialisation being realised through innovation.
President Mnangagwa launched Education 5.0 last year and said the development was a major milestone geared towards industrialisation and modernisation of the country.
Addressing delegates at the CEO Africa Roundtable Conference in Victoria Falls last week, Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira (pictured) said Education 5.0 was bearing remarkable results and driving sustainable development.
“Innovation played a key role in reopening the economy in the new normal, driving sustainable development and spurring growth of organisations across the diverse economic sectors.
“Through Education 5.0 our National Biotechnology Authority has produced a cough mixture COFSOL, President Mnangagwa commissioned a Marula processing and beneficiation plant at Rutenga, Mwenezi. We have finished an Oxygen/ Nitrogen and Acetylene plants with Verify Engineering in Mutare which is able to produce Zimbabwe’s targeted need of oxygen in three days, the list is endless,” he said.
He said other key innovative projects in the pipeline included the new road substitute, a coal tar being made at the Midlands State University (MSU), with its industry set to be up and running in nine months.
He said it was the role of his ministry to provide the nation with the necessary means or capability to achieve Vision 2030 of an industrialised and modernised nation through causing the capability for the production of quality goods and services.
Prof Murwira said industrialisation was normally envisaged as a two-pronged process; investment-driven and innovation-driven.
“Investment driven industrialisation relies on foreign direct investment and imported technology as drivers for economic growth whilst innovation driven industrialisation relies on local innovations for industrialisation.
“All industries that come into a nation as investment type of industries were born as innovation types of industry in their countries of origin. Zimbabwe shall combine the investment driven type of industrialisation and the innovation driven industrialisation.”
Prof Murwira said in the grand plan for Education 5.0, higher and tertiary education system must be the provider and facilitator of wealth creation through creating new industry while supporting existing industry through endogenous innovation.
He said the grand plan was supported by a well thought framework or ecosystems with inputs, processes and outputs.
“Through heritage based Education 5.0, we shall expand the existing private sector by giving people the capability to create new industries,” added Prof Murwira.
In his presentation, Dandemutande chief executive officer Mr Never Ncube said the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated he rise of the contactless economy, under pinned by digitaliasation and frontier technologies.
“The next normal is about online delivery of services and products, serving customers from anywhere, managing remote workforce, improved market competitiveness, our existence in a digital global village and rebuilding a more equitable and inclusive global economy among others,” said Mr Ncube.
He said there was a need to understand contactless economy driven by supply-side; digital technologies such as 5G and cloud platforms.
An innovator who is the founder and managing director of SRS Aviation, Ms Sibongile Sambo said with changes occurring in all aspects of life, be it environmental, technological, economic, or societal, there was a need for digital economy acceleration.
The conference aimed to assist CEOs and senior executives in different sectors to harness converging technologies in order to create an inclusive CEO who is prepared for the future.
