Prof Calestous Juma.
A science and technology seminar series has been lined up next week in honour of Prof Calestous Juma, a top Kenyan scientist and academic who died in 2017.
The inaugural seminar in his honour will start next Thursday, under the theme ‘Re-igniting Africa industrialisation through inclusive knowledge and innovation’ and will bring together academicians and practitioners.
Prof Juma was a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School in the US and director of the Science, Technology, and Globalisation Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The New Africa Magazine once named him among the most influential Africans in science, technology and innovation.
The series will be coordinated by the Calestous Juma Legacy Foundation (CJLF) and the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS). The aim is to keep his dream alive through discussions around knowledge and innovation.
In his career spanning decades, Prof Juma’s work focused on analysing how knowledge and innovation could be harnessed for development in the context of institutional change in socio-economic systems.
According to the Belfer Centre, the late scholar was a member of the Royal Society of London, the US National Academy of Sciences, the World Academy of Sciences, the UK Royal Academy of Engineering and African Academy of Sciences.
ACTS said in a statement: “To keep alight his dream, an online seminar series in honour of his stellar achievements in this sector is set to be launched on August 12 2021.”
“Upon his death, all his tributes, which came from global leaders, UN bodies, development practitioners, regional blocs, heads of institutions, scholars, researchers, colleagues and students, emphasized the need to honour his legacy," ACTS executive director Peter Ogada said.
The seminar series will be held once every three months and will culminate in a conference in early 2022.
