Opinions of Sunday, 27 August 2017

Columnist: Kofi Thompson

An open letter to University of Arizona's Dr. Abraham Jalbout

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Dear Dr. Jalbout, An opportunity exists in Ghana for you to initiate a unique public private (PPP) model that could be replicated throughout the developing world, to empower researchers and the institutions they work in.

There is a pool of brilliant and talented researchers in Ghana. If the research institutions they work for were well-resourced, they could make important contributions to the advancement of human knowledge that will eventually help to improve the well-being of societies across the globe.

Dr. Jalbout, because you happpen to be an entrepreneur yourself, and a scientific researcher too, you are uniquely qualified to set up partnerships between Ghanaian research institutions and the best research institutions in the United States of America - beginning with the University of Arizona where you happen to be a faculty member of the College of Engineering.

As it happens, all Ghana's research institutions want to commercialise the results of the most promising work they carry out. PPPs to enable them do successfuly will doubtless be welcomed by all of them. In light of that across-board-desire to commercialise the results of their research work, I am pretty sure that any collaboration between you and the various research institutes under the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and our best universities would yield mutually beneficial business outcomes.

The current minister in charge of science, innovation and technology, is a brilliant heart surgeon, Hon. Dr. Kwabena Frimpong Boateng. He is a politician who is very keen on innovation that improves the lives of Ghanaians. Why don't you contact him through the Ghana High Commission in Singapore - and arrange a trip to Ghana that will enable you to visit some of Ghana's research institutions and meet with those who head them to explore the possibility of setting up PPPs with them? Thanks. Kind regards, Kofi Thompson.