Since his appointment as Sierra Leone and Africa’s first Chief Innovation Officer, in the Directorate of Science Technology and Innovation, Dr. Moinina David Sengeh has within the President’s one hundred days in office hit the ground running in achieving a set of remarkable outputs towards the realization of Presidents Bio’s commitment to transforming Sierra Leone into an innovative nation.
Cognisant of the need for planning the Directorate has worked closely with the Office of the Chief Minister in completing a five-year strategic vision with several high impact deliverables.
The key focus among other deliverables in the vision is capturing private sector investment into innovation, facilitating international partnerships between universities in the country, the global academic and Research and Development institutions.
Works towards the renovation and remodeling of a facility to house the DSTI within the Office of the President has also been done and will soon be opened to the public.
Dr. David Sengeh has also completed discussions with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair for Global Change to embed a Tony Blair Institute Associate as the lead Technical Strategist within the DSTI.
He has also most importantly engaged international institutions like the European Union and several United agencies, internationally renowned academic institutions like Harvard, Columbia and Massachusetts Institute of Technology for partnerships with various universities in Sierra Leone.
DSTI has also initiated discussions with several MDAs and other public interest organizations in the country to understand their challenges and discuss potential solutions. Among the pilot MDA’s so far engaged are the Ministry of Finance, the Sierra Leone Roads Authority and the Anti-Corruption Commission.
The overall plan is to set a new path that will allow Sierra Leone to join other nations that are leaping forward through Technology and Innovation.
The Directorate, among other things, will challenge our national thinking and redefine our definition of the word IMPOSSIBLE.
It will be recalled that the country research and innovation institutions over the years have been weak and not measured by tangible outputs including patents, publications, and deployed projects and hence the country was not known for creating innovations and businesses that are of international renown.