Post date: Feb 19, 2021 11:40:27 AM
Speech
Ø Honorable Mrs Leela Devi DOOKUN-LUCHOOMUN, GCSK, Vice-Prime Minister & Minister of Education, Tertiary Education, Science & Technology
Ø Dr Louis Jean Claude AUTREY, CSK, Chancellor University of Mauritius
Ø Mr P Chitamun , CSK, Pro-Chancellor & Chairperson of UoM Council
Ø Mr Vidia Mooneegan, Senior Vice-President and Managing Director, Ceridian (Mauritius) Ltd
Ø Pro-Vice-Chancellors
Ø Deans of Faculties
Ø Distinguished Guests
Ø University Colleagues
Ø Ladies and Gentlemen
Good morning to you all and welcome to the launching of the Innovation Lab, a joint project of the UoM and Ceridian.
Let me start by thanking Mr Vidia Mooneegan for the proposal to set up this innovation lab at the UoM and thank the whole team at Ceridian who have been working hard in close collaboration with the PVC (PR) and the UoM team for coming up with such an awesome realization. We have provided the space and Ceridian has designed and set up the Innovation Lab. Let me also add Ceridian funded the creation of the lab. Such a lab is key for Technological innovation and enhancing competitiveness of the company Ceridian. This University-industry collaboration develops stronger channels to facilitate the flow of knowledge and technology and will allow UoM to conduct problem-focused research that can accelerate technological breakthroughs.
I have no doubt such a space will inspire our students and researchers and unleash their potential. We should reap the results of their creativity and talent in the coming months and years.
Yes, we need to transform knowledge into wealth, that is innovation. The University has a key role to play. We have put innovation in 2017 in the centre of our vision. That was a radical change in the thinking of the University’s mission to invest not only in human and intellectual capital through teaching and research but also to invest in business and social capital. To do this, we had to build bridges with industry and the community. We had to connect the dots for innovation to spur. This is what we have been striving to do over the past 4 years. Some think it all happens by chance. Yes, chance favours the prepared mind. Make no mistake Ladies and Gentlemen, it starts by instilling trust in people and get the private sector to understand we have something to offer to them to make their companies more competitive and help them face the various challenges. We put in a lot effort to get so many on-going collaborations with the private and public sector. This is today our third partnership and just over the past week, we have partnered with the National Committee on Good Governance and launched a good governance scorecard and we have partnered also with MCCI to boost research with the private sector.
We should do more and now strive to put in place the National Innovation System. This was a major recommendation of the Innovation Week we held in Nov-Dec last year. The role of the NIS is to promote innovation and to provide the right ecosystem for innovation to thrive through the macro, meso and micro levels. This will enable us address policy actions, reflect on institutional and programmatic support and finally develop the innovation capacity level – this is a very holistic and systematic approach.
I made recently, in an article published by the Charles Telfair Centre, a proposal for a clustering of public and private universities. This is also another endeavour to foster innovation. Knowledge sharing is key to innovation and the emergence of new ideas.
The setting up of the Innovation Lab will reinforce university-industry interactions and help Mauritius do better in terms of business sophistication, one of the prime assessment criteria of the Global Innovation Index. Singapore is home to 2400 tech starts ups and to numerous Innovation Labs set up by companies. We hope this lab will effectively facilitate innovation and the integration of disruptive technologies at Ceridian, which is one of the goals also of their investment.
We are providing the necessary conducive environment for innovation to grow but it will also depend on the hard work and effort of our people. It’s easier to say we need this and that or we lack such and such but it also needs a lot of sacrifice and tireless investment to do better than others. That is excellence. That should guide us in all we do.
Thank you.
Professor D Jhurry, CSK, GOSK, FAAS
Vice-Chancellor