NIF-India, JKUAT-Kenya ink deal for 'innovation cooperation'

The National Innovation Foundation – India (NIF) entered into an agreement with Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT-Kenya) on Tuesday for the "establishment of innovation cooperation" between the two organisations, a statement issued by NIF-India said here.

NIF-India and JKUAT, the statement said, have agreed to collaborate efforts in the areas of developing long-term strategies and plan of action to help in the advancement of individual and community level creativity and innovation, sharing resources and expertise to develop specific programmes for community development, jointly developing a system to assist innovators in converting their ideas into commercially and socially viable innovations.

The two have also come together to create new platforms for creative ideas and innovations to be recognised and showcased periodically, thereby increasing the pool of commercially viable as well as open source innovations.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by Dr Vipin Kumar, director and Chief Innovation Officer, NIF–India and Professor Mabel Imbuga, vice-chancellor in presence of Professor Anil Gupta, executive vice-chair of NIF, Suleman H O Okech, director, Nairobi Industrial and Technology Park and other officials from NIF, JKUAT and Honey Bee Network.

Based at Ahmedabad, NIF–India is an autonomous organisation of the Union government's Department of Science and Technology (DST) providing institutional support to innovators from the informal sector whereas Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology is a premier university of Kenya providing accessible quality training, research and innovation in the fields of agriculture, engineering, technology, enterprise development, built environment, health sciences, social sciences and other applied sciences.