Prof. Rita Akosua Dickson, Vice-Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), has appealed to industry to collaborate with the university to commercialize some of its research.
She said that the institution had come up with inventions to alleviate societal problems and provide assistance to individuals over the years.
She did say, though, that sectors were making good use of the research and asked for greater private sector partnership to help bring those advances to the public.
Exhibition
Prof. Dickson made the statement during the opening ceremony of a four-day science exhibition organized by the university to commemorate the university's 70th anniversary.
The subject of the 70th anniversary celebration is "KNUST: 70 years of world leadership." She stated that the goal of a scientific and technology institution was to have an impact on society, and that "for the past 70 years, that is what we have stood for."
"What keeps us awake until now is that we consistently tell our story that the problems of society are our problems, and we go through research to propose solutions to humanity's problems," she stated.
In this line, she stated that the industry must collaborate with the university so that "if we conduct these studies, we must ensure that the study or the results of these studies have an influence on the people for whom the studies are conducted."
Appreciation
She expressed gratitude to the businesses that provided platforms for university students to complete their industrial attachments, saying, "They help us bring the practicality of our students' training to bear on what we do, and we want to say we are grateful to them, and we welcome them to even help us commercialize all of these research outcomes."
"They should come and take it up since it will benefit society greatly." In that sense, we will be satisfied and know that we are fulfilling our basic duty of influencing the lives of humanities," she argued.
Chairman, Planning Committee
Prof. William O. Ellis, chairman of the university's 70th-anniversary organizing committee, said the exhibition was a chance for KNUST to show off some of its achievements, ideas, and creativity to its stakeholders and the rest of the Ghanaian community.
He added that it would also allow the general people to see the university and its facilities, "allowing for a better awareness of the university's strength of expansion and what it stands for."
"KNUST is Ghana, and Ghana is KNUST," he says. This signifies that our dear country's development cannot be separated from or without KNUST."
The science and technology exhibition, according to Prof. Ellis, is "only a small component of what we do here as a university."
Agriculture and Natural Resources, Health Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences, Art and Built Environment, Science, and the Institute of Distance Learning collaborated on the show.