BIH: FOCAL POINT FOR WIPO TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION SUPPORT CENTRE [TISC]

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.

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.

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

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.

About Botswana Innovation Hub

Botswana Innovation Hub has been incorporated as a company duly registered under the laws of Botswana to develop and manage Botswana’s first science and technology park. We contribute to the country’s economic development and competitiveness by creating new scientific, technological, and indigenous knowledge-based business opportunities. The Innovation Hub adds value to existing companies, foster entrepreneurship and technology transfer, generate knowledge-based jobs, and attract innovative companies and institutions to set-up their businesses at the Botswana Innovation Hub’s science and technology park.