Dr Okuli William Swai Briefs NFTRC Staff

  • Dr Okuli William Swai Briefs NFTRC Staff

    Dr Okuli William Swai Briefs NFTRC Staff

    National Food Technology Research Centre (NFTRC) with Research and Development staff recently attended a seminar hosted by Dr Okuli William Swai. Dr Swai is a lecturer of Development Studies in the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities at Dodoma University in Tanzania, UDOM.

    The visit was supported by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) SARIMA programme. Dr Swai had visited NFTRC for two weeks, from 12th to 23rd of September.

    NFTRC’s Acting Director of Research and Development; Dr Bernard Bulawayo welcomed and introduced her to staff. He highlighted that her presentation sought to share with NFTRC staff an overview of research activities at her institution.

    Dr Swai said Dodoma University, which is located at the top of the mountains in Central Tanzania host several departments namely; College of Education (CoED), College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CoHSS) and College of Informatics and Virtual Education (CIVE).

    Other Colleges include College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences (CNMS), College of Health Sciences (CoHS) and College of Earth Sciences (CoES). She emphasized that NFTRC staff can benefit from participating in some of these departments.

     

    She added that the school started   operating in March 2008, with only a small population of about 10,000-14,999 students but now it has more than 20 000 students. She emphasized that the University has all the necessary facilities that a person cannot live without, such as a hospital, shops, accommodation and others.

    Dr Swai said the University produces very good graduates, who get employed across Tanzania. She revealed that they have limited funds to operate the university, yet they do not allow such a challenge to impede the university operation.  Dr Swai also said that the government is providing them with only 30% of the funds to run the University.  She highlighted that the infrastructure was erected using funds from a pension scheme.

    Dr Swai urged NFTRC staff that whoever has interest in joining the school should not hesitate to contact them as they are looking forward to working with them.

    In acknowledging the benefits of her visit, Dr Swai said she was grateful for her visit and stay at NFTRC, and also for the visit to NFTRC’s commercial subsidiary, National Agro Processing (NAPro) in Selibe Phikwe. She thanked all those who made her visit a success, and appreciated the kindness and love that they had shown her.

    She said she hoped that NFTRC and NAPro would continue to grow in research and innovation, food technology, technology transfer and commercialisation; and that one day Botswana would sell most of her own products in local retailers.

     

     

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