Dr. Keith Robert Thomas
The island has always been a place of sugar plantations and high-quality tourism. Each of these developments has had a devastating impact on the ecosystem of the island. It is, therefore, a challenge for a small island state like Mauritius to adapt its economy and adapt to these sustainability challenges. However, there is a lot of expertise here and a lot of knowledge about the issue. Now it is a question of turning that into more visible actions. I think that is the stage we are at, it is time for more swift action. It is time to move on from talk and take action on sustainability.
Prof Dhanjay Jhurry
The COVID pandemic has shown us the need to reimagine the role of universities. We cannot just rely on universities to respond to the need of building human and intellectual capital but also business capital. We also cannot forego social capital.
The triple helix method of innovation doesn't hold if the community is not involved sufficiently.
We have different organizations in Africa that do a lot but we still come short when it comes to partnerships. I believe we have to start big in this instance. We can begin from our large economic formations such as SADC and COMESA and cascade down.
Universities can also take the agency through different initiatives such as our entrepreneurial drive that led to the establishment of the Agritech Park. We want to groom entrepreneurs to invest in modern agriculture.
TAN Chee Peng
Preceding each Industrial Revolution, there was a big event, a game-changer. Starting with 1IR (1st Industrial Revolution) which was driven by capitalism to 4IR.
2019 saw a once-in-a-lifetime, hopefully, mega Covid-19 event which resulted in a still-spiralling global pandemic. Two drivers shaped the emergence of the 5th Industrial Revolution: resilience and sustainability.
