BIH Becomes Focal Point for WIPO Technology Innovation Support Centre
- December 10, 2019
- Posted by: jxtve
- Category: Press Release
The Botswana Innovation Hub (BIH) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Botho University, Botswana College of Engineering & Technology (BCET), University of Botswana (UB), Botswana International University of Science & Technology (BIUST) and Botswana Institute for Technology Research and Innovation (BITRI) to launch the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Technology Innovation Support Centre [TISC] Program for Botswana. Through this MoU, the above five mentioned institutions now form the TISC Network.
BIH is proud to serve as the National Focal Point mandated with the coordination of all TISC activities, provide office support for the TISC Network, serve as an interface with WIPO through the Companies and Intellectual Property Authority (CIPA). BIH will also organize, with the support of WIPO and CIPA, information awareness-raising and promotion activities involving technical and scientific information on the services provided by the TISC Network.
Services provided by the TISC Network include;
- Patent information searches
- Scientific and technical literature searches
- Technology trends and monitoring
- Advisory services on intellectual property, technology transfer, innovation and commercialisation
The TISC Program provides innovators, researchers, engineers, scientists, lectures, SMEs, investors in developing countries with access to locally based, high quality technology information and related services, helping them to exploit their innovation potential and manage their intellectual property (IP) rights. The aim of the program is to ensure that users have access to services tailored to their information technology needs.
TISC Program is a welcome development in Botswana in line with the WIPO Development Agenda of reducing the technical and scientific information gap between developing and least developed and industrialised countries.
The Botswana TISC Network institutions will assist researchers and scientists access information relevant to their research and product development works. Equipped with this information, the researchers can make informed decisions on how to progress with their scientific works thus: focus their R&D on improvement of the existing technology, better negotiations with investors on IP rights or outrightly abandon their research to avoid re-inventing the wheel, thus saving on usually limited funds.