Calestous Juma Delivers 2015 Pardee Distinguished Lecture
New article: “Africa rebooting” by Calestous Juma published April 14th in New African Magazine
Calestous Juma, an internationally recognized authority on the role of science, technology, engineering and innovation in sustainable development, delivered the 2015 Pardee Distinguished Lecture sponsored by the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future on April 14.
Prof. Juma, Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project and Professor of the Practice of International Development (on leave) at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), presented an address titled “Technological Innovation and Development: Long-Range Perspectives for Africa.”
Prof. Juma’s talk focused on the role that innovation will play as a driver of long-term economic development on the African continent. He explained the traditional perception that African development will be driven by one of two processes – growth through R&D or through natural resources – and presented a “middle road” of leveraging human competence and technological innovation. Prof. Juma drew on examples in robotics, mobile phones, and drones to highlight the capacity to use existing scientific and technological knowledge in new or different ways to solve local problems. The ability of African countries to search a vast pool of knowledge, and then apply lessons to harness that technology for local conditions, presents a distinct advantage to being a technological latecomer, Prof. Juma said.
However, Prof. Juma cautioned that there are significant challenges to using technological innovation to drive economic growth, particularly inadequate engineering education and infrastructure (i.e. energy, transportation, irrigation, and telecommunications), as well as an insufficient focus on entrepreneurship and risk management. Because all of these limiting factors are controlled by different ministries, Prof. Juma believes leadership, particularly by heads of state, will be essential to realize the potential of technological innovation in African countries.
Prof. Juma is a prolific author on topics related to science, technology, and environment, and he has won several international awards and received many honorary degrees for his work on sustainable development. His latest book, The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa, was published in 2011 by Oxford University Press. He is currently completing two books: Pushback: Tensions between Technological Innovation and Incumbency and Schumpeter’s Revenge: Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Development. He regularly tweets (@calestous) about issues related to sustainable development, technology innovation, and more.
He has held high level positions in international organizations and academia, including as founding Executive Director of the African Centre for Technology Studies in Nairobi; Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity; and Chancellor of the University of Guyana. He has been called on to testify before government committees on science, technology, agriculture, and food security in the U.S. and the United Kingdom as well as in African nations. He co-chaired the African Union’s High-Level Panel on Science, Technology and Innovation and is on the board of the Aga Khan University.
Prof. Juma has been elected to several scientific and engineering academies including the Royal Society of London, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, and the African Academy of Sciences. He is on the judging panel of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering and the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation.
His other positions at the Harvard Kennedy School include Faculty Chair of the School’s Innovation for Economic Development Executive Program and the Mason Fellows Program. He also directs HKS’s Agricultural Innovation Policy in Africa Project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is currently on leave and serving as Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professor (2014-15) in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prof. Juma holds a DPhil in science and technology policy studies from the University of Sussex (UK).
Prof. Juma previously was a panelist at the Pardee Center conference “Development That Works” in 2011. A video of the session is available here.