Zimbabwe will host a magnificent Conference on Intellectual Property (IP), Innovation and Value Addition for Business Competitiveness and Sustainable Development in Africa for the first time.
This was revealed by the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Mrs Virginia Mabiza at a press conference held in Harare today.
The conference is organised by World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in collaboration with African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO) and the Organisation africaine de la propriété intellectuelle (OAPI) supported by the Government of Zimbabwe (Goz) and the Japan Patents Office (JPO) from the 6th – 8th of November 2019, at the Meikles Hotel.
The speakers will be drawn from different countries and professions.
“The objective of the conference is to bring together participants from different sectors to discuss opportunities and challenges facing African countries in building a vibrant innovation system and the effective use of IP by academic, research organisations and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) in the 4th industrial revolution. It aims to promote generation, protection and commercialisation of intellectual property assets by SMEs, the academia and research organisations,” Mrs Mabiza said.
The conference will break into the Universities and Research and Development (R &D) institutions institutions as well as SMEs clusters. Under the R & D cluster, participants will examine the importance of IP training particularly in universities to provide the required IP professional; enhance IP awareness creation within universities; and support IP generation and protection by the universities. And financing of research and development
Under the SMEs cluster, participants will examine IP and innovation management practices in SMEs with particular emphasis on case studies covering the entire spectrum of the IP system. They will also discuss the role of Public Private Partnerships and their contribution in addressing Africa’s challenges.
“As Zimbabwe we are looking forward to this conference for it encourages a ‘Pro-IP attitude’, which will help in building IP respect in all spheres of business and research.
“We hope this Conference will provide an ideal platform for sharing views and ideas as well as improving the understanding, of the importance of intellectual property for sustainable development. The conference is in tandem with the government’s education model 5.0, a model which seeks to promote production of goods and services and value creation at learning institutions,” Mrs Mabiza added.
