News Releases

Kenyan-born Harvard Lecturer for UWI Distinguished Open Lecture

For Release Upon Receipt - October 24, 2013

St. Augustine


ST. AUGUSTINE, Trinidad & Tobago – The Open Lectures Committee of The University of the West Indies (UWI) St. Augustine welcomes Professor Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project at the Harvard Kennedy School. Juma will deliver a Distinguished Open Lecture examining “How Nations Succeed? Higher Education, Research and Technological Leapfrogging in Emerging Economies” on November 7 at the Daaga Auditorium from 5.30 p.m.

The lecture, which is being hosted in collaboration with CARISCIENCE, the University of the Southern Caribbean (USC) and the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) will focus on the strategic role that platform technologies such as informatics, genomics and new materials can play in fostering rapid economic growth in emerging nations and outline the reforms needed to achieve these, with particular emphasis on adopting a systems approach in fostering innovation.

Juma, who has won several international awards for his work on sustainable development, is currently Faculty Chair for Innovation for Economic Development Executive Program and directs the Harvard Kennedy School’s Agricultural Innovation Policy in Africa Project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is a former Executive Secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and Founding Director of the African Centre for Technology Studies in Nairobi. He is co-chair of the African Union's High-Level Panel on Science, Technology and Innovation and a jury member of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. Juma is former Chancellor of the University of Guyana and has been elected to several scientific academies including the Royal Society of London, the US National Academy of Sciences, the World Academy of Sciences, the UK Royal Academy of Engineering and the African Academy of Sciences. His latest book, The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa was published by Oxford University Press in 2011 and he is currently writing books on engineering for development and resistance to new technologies.

Recently, Professor Juma, an advocate of genetically-modified (GM) technology, urged countries such as Tanzania to ignore pressure from European partners opposed to the technology and adopt it for future food security. Professor Juma, author of “The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa” argues in it that the biggest challenge facing Africa today is lack of innovation in agriculture production. He said “When GM crops were first commercially released in 1996; critics argued that they would only benefit industrialised countries.” In a report earlier this month from the Seattle Times, Juma argued that “Opposition to biotechnology in Africa started before there was much scientific research on the subject outside South Africa; so Africa’s first import was opposition to the technology before the products got there.”

 

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About The UWI

Over the last six decades, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a full-fledged University with over 40,000 students. Today, UWI is the largest and most longstanding higher education provider in the English-speaking Caribbean, with main campuses in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and Centres in Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, The Bahamas, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Christopher (St Kitts) & Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent & the Grenadines. UWI recently launched its Open Campus, a virtual campus with over 50 physical site locations across the region, serving over 20 countries in the English-speaking Caribbean. UWI is an international university with faculty and students from over 40 countries and collaborative links with over 60 universities around the world. Through its seven Faculties, UWI offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Pure & Applied Sciences, Science and Agriculture, and Social Sciences.

 

(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.)

 

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