Sierra Leone must reshape its university curriculum if it is to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), the country’s Chief Innovation officer has said.
Dr David Moinina Sengeh, who is also the Director of the Science, Technology and Innovation in the office of the President, made the call last week during a presentation to cabinet at State House.
According to a statement issued from the office of the Presidential Press Secretary, Dr Sengeh made the comment as part of a special presentation to Cabinet at State House. His presentation explored ways Sierra Leone can take advantage of the 4IR to improve on policy and governance.
Sengeh said 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 that 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”.
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