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Abel Zhakata Manicaland Bureau
AFRICA University has scored a first by becoming the first university in the country to have an innovation hub that is in line with the demands of cutting edge explorations which are aimed at providing innovative and technological solutions to business enterprise. In an interview last Friday on the sidelines of a universities’ taskforce meeting held at Africa University, AU Vice-Chancellor, Professor Fanuel Furusa, said the Methodist-related institution of higher learning was deeply involved in the transformation agenda.

He said the creation of the innovation hub at the campus showed that the university was serious about playing its part in championing industrial revolution in the country. Prof Furusa said AU was also retooling research laboratories at the Old Mutare campus to meet the new demands.

“We are the first university to have an innovation hub,” he said. “This is a place where people go to and develop ideas about new businesses, new technologies, new processes and they go through the whole process to even commercialisation and pitching up their products to industry.

“So, the hub is set up in such a way that somebody will go there to think about an idea and fully develop it and also to copyright and patent the ideas and pitch them to industry. We call this the I5 Hub. The five I’s represent Ideation, Incubation, Innovation, Intellectual property and Industrialisation.” Prof Furusa said the university was now providing scholarships for graduate students to speed up the production of ideas that result in modernisation.

“If you are to transform a nation you need high-end skills, You need people who can do cutting edge research. We now have scholarships for post graduate studies.” he said.