Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, says its action time for Africa to develop its human resource base to engage actively in space technology, to protect its water bodies and other resources.
Dr Adutwum stated that though growth in space technology is at an exponential rate with numerous opportunities, Africa was yet to maximize on the potentials in the sector to its advantage.
He was speaking on the ongoing three-day 5th International Conference on the use of space technology for water resources management in Accra, and called on African Governments to escalate efforts in developing its human resource base.
In attendance were the actors in academia and industry, as well as researchers, to discuss the applications of space technology for water management to benefit developing countries.
Speaking at the conference, Dr Adutwum said, “Africa must wake up to understand that we’ll rely on space technology (the hardware and software) from other countries and we’re just observers. At best, we become consumers of the research that is done by us.”
“It is important for African countries to think about how to improve Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education, and tap into research conducted by other countries to develop the needed software and hardware in monitoring water resources”. He said
The Minister said that Ghana was scaling up its drive in developing its human capacity through the establishment of STEM schools.
“The schools are to train the young ones to fully take on the challenge of coming up with both hardware and software in space technologies to protect its water bodies and other resources.”
“I want to assure you that our objective is to make sure that we build our human capacity, not only for research but for developing software, manufacturing and also the equipment that is needed,” he added.
In his welcome address, the Vice Chancellor, University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR), Professor Elvis Asare-Bediako, indicated that the extent of damage caused by illegal mining activities required using advanced technologies to monitor, study, and provide solutions to them.
He said, “Without a doubt, water is life in the home and in the industry – it is the universal solvent and we cannot do without it no more than we can do without air. Water is therefore unquestionably essential to life itself. It is sad to note that recent commercial activities.