Cameroon’s drive to modernize the Information and Communication Technology, ICT sector as well as transform the digital economy has gotten a big boost following the launching of the first-ever ICT research Centre in the CEMAC sub-region in Yaounde.
The Terry and Linda Byrd Research centre as it is called is named after two Professors and world renowned researchers from the United States, Terry and Linda Byrd. The research centre of global standard was launched a fortnight ago via a video conference that grouped several ICT experts from across the globe.
The centre which experts reveal is going to be a turning point in the advancement of ICT sector in Cameroon and the sub-region as a whole will greatly help in providing solutions to basic problems faced by Cameroon and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa like healthcare, renewable energy, the economy and electricity.
As explained by the initiators, the Centre pays attention to “developmental and applied research” centered on the introduction, application, implementation, management, and performance of “Exponential Technologies” (technologies that are advancing at an exponential rate and have the potential to thoroughly and entirely change the entire trajectory of human development) to radically transform the world’s economies for the advancement and betterment of human society.
The research centre will stimulate, provoke, and influence the transformation of the Sub-Saharan African economies as well as examine, analyze, survey, assess, grade, and understand so-called exponential technologies and their utilisation in advancing the business, health, education, and general welfare of humanity including the rapid: 3-D Printing, block chain technology, material science and nanotechnology, biotechnology, artificial intelligence and robotics, DNA sequencing, renewable energies and food fabrication.
The experts asserted that, the world is being digitalised at an alarming rate as Exponential Technologies infiltrate every part of human society such as business, health, education, energy, and communications.
Digitisation, they said, ultimately leads to two powerful characteristics of Exponential Technologies, democratisation and decentralisation. The Research Centre is acutely interested in investigating this transformation of the world by these Exponential Technologies and informing the world as we transition into a new Third Generation Economy”.
The ICT University which is hosting the first-ever ICT research Centre in Cameroon and beyond, is a University that operates a purely US-based curriculum to provide quality ICT and Managerial Human Capacity Development specially targeted for Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia, with aim to impose itself as premier destination for research, innovation and training of scholars relevant for the context of developing economies.
Founded in 2010, The ICT University, has multiple campuses of The ICT University Foundation, USA and does not only offer degrees in ICTs but imparts knowledge of ICTs in all academic disciplines it offers. It also funds donations of ICT equipment, E-Learning laboratories and E-Libraries for many universities based in the developing world in general and Africa in particular.
With a plethora of programmes at the undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels, including diploma and certification programs, the ICT University offers a dynamic and flexible learning environment that inspires innovation and creativity and places emphasis on student access.
It prides itself on offering an intimate, cutting edge campus environment disposing of all resources essential for producing tomorrow’s leading ICT experts, technopreneurs, renewable energy engineers, and business managers. The university has also created collaborations, partnerships and exchange agreements with leading US, African and other international institutions that further enrich the academic, social and cultural diversity of its campus.
