A technology exposition (TechExpo) was held in Kampala, Uganda from 30th to 31st March 2022 co-organised by the Institute of sustainability in Civil Engineering (INaB) of RWTH Aachen University. The TechExpo is one of the activities of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) funded TeTraPHar Africa Project involving Uganda Cleaner Production Centre (UCPC) and Mzumbe University (MU). The main goal of TeTraPHar Africa is the increase of research uptake by industries, especially SMEs in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The TechExpo provided the opportunity for sustainable technologies to be showcased and brought together technology suppliers, SMEs of potential users, governmental institutions and investors. A particular attention was on innovative and unique technologies to enhance resource efficiency and Post-harvest loss management.
Technology users, researchers, policy makers and the general public interacted with the exhibitors of, among others, Solar Dryer House (SDH) technologies, innovative irrigation systems, biogas generation and supply systems.
In parallel to activities going on at the exhibition ground, a conference on technology transfer and on post-harvest loss management technologies was held. This session was conducted by UCPC and MU and featured presentations on Sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals, Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production as well as panel discussions between representatives of Ministries, SMEs and financial institutions. The main outcome of this exchange was the need to increase the awareness on the availability and incentives related to sustainable technologies among the key actors. To this end, consultations were initiated towards the signing of a Policy TechExpo 2022 Kampala Declaration, involving in particular, the Uganda Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives (MTIC) and the Federation of Small and Medium sized Enterprises-Uganda, and the Financial sector.
The conference activities also featured demonstration side events of the SDH technology by Sokoine University Graduate Entrepreneurs Cooperative (SUGECO) and of the Mobile App of the TeTraPHar Africa project developed by Digital Mobile Africa (DMA)
The TechExpo and conference ended with the award of certificates to UCPC and MU researchers for training on life cycle assessment methodologies imparted by INaB, in the implementation of the TeTraPHar Africa Project. Other previously implemented activity of the project include, the workshop on in Tanzania, and a visit to Aachen of two MU and UCPC researchers who were trained on the use of LCA softwares by INaB and technology transfer by RWTH Innovation. During their stay, visits were organized to the DigiHub and Start-up Incubator to further illustrate the Aachen version of technology transfer.
TeTraPHar Africa – RWTH Innovation GmbH
RWTH Aachen University auf LinkedIn: #research #innovation #sustainability
