New emerging maker-type spaces can provide an interactive arena where academic institutions, independent researchers and makers catalyze innovations. These interdisciplinary, cross-pollination platforms typically foster a self-replicating cycle of sustainable enterprise and endeavor, a virtuous cycle in other words.
In New African Calestous Juma highlights inhibiting gaps in traditional policy processes that could be mitigated by in our opinion by the adoption of maker-type environments:
In New African Calestous Juma highlights inhibiting gaps in traditional policy processes that could be mitigated by in our opinion by the adoption of maker-type environments:
...Technological versatility is a critical element of product development. Some technologies offer greater opportunity for product diversification than others. Diamonds are not forever, but the knowledge underlying their structures might be. Agricultural residue may appear valueless. But with modern knowledge on nanotechnology and chemical engineering, such material could be the basis of new biomaterials-based industries. Knowledge diversification offers countries greater opportunities for creating new economic combinations.
image via New African
For the most successful combinations to arise, policymakers should be aware that technological innovation is a recombinant process that builds on prior knowledge. For example, as noted in this column last month, the 3D printing industry – a possible dramatic growth sector that some young African entrepreneurs are already exploiting – is an extension of the digital revolution, but it also requires additional expertise in electronic, mechanical and chemical engineering.
Pursuing such strategies requires building up the capacity to identify, acquire and domesticate emerging technologies. Such competence usually resides in science, technology and engineering departments in universities and research institutes. In fact, most African nations already possess pockets of such capabilities in their institutions of higher learning and research. But their governments hardly know about their existence, partly because of their preoccupation with raw material exports and appeals for foreign assistance...[continue reading]
