Sierra Leone’s Chief Innovation Officer, Dr David Moinina Sengeh, has said the country will have to review its university curriculum to ensure it benefits from the opportunities offered by the Furth Industrial Revolution (4IR).
Dr Sengeh, who is the Director of Science, Technology and Innovation at the Office of the President, made the call on Thursday while making a special presentation to Cabinet at State House, according to a statement from the presidency. His presentation explored ways the West African country could take advantage of 4IR to improve on policy and governance.
Dr Sengeh was quoted saying that his presentation was informed by President Bio’s request for a digitalised governance system as part of government’s national agenda for human capital development. He said the presentation was part of the motivation to assess how and why things were done in government at present.
The 4IR, Sengeh said, needed skills-based learning, entrepreneurship, critical thinking, grit and coding, among others, noting that there was the need to shape university curriculum and train students so they could be able to participate in the FIR.
“Some of the characteristics include big data, like call data records, government procurement data across institutions, social media data and fishing transponder data,” he stated. “With cloud computing, which means that a lot of the work we do sit on the cloud – the internet, using artificial intelligence and drone imagery, we may be able to significantly address our maternal mortality challenges,” he added.
The presentation was done on theme: “Status Quo, Risks, Myths, Use Cases & Opportunities in Sierra Leone”.
KC/abj/APA