UMaT organises second career fair
The University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) has organised its second Innovation and Career Fair at Tarkwa, in the Western Region, on the theme: “Think Smart. Be Innovative.”
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The fair was instituted last year to help unearth the entrepreneurial potential of students and also provide a platform for them to transform what they study into feasible and scalable projects that would impact positively in the communities and the country at large.
It is also aimed at bringing together engineers, researchers, students, consultants, business executives, service providers and all those who are interested in innovation in mining, petroleum, technology and related disciplines.
At the fair, the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof J.S.Y Kuma, outlined the tenets of the university’s vision and mission, which is to become a centre of excellence in Ghana and Africa for producing world-class professionals in the fields of mining, petroleum, technology and related engineering disciplines.
Industry and research outcomes
He said the lack of a link between industry and research outcomes had been one of the problems confronting tertiary institutions in the country and indicated that “Our research outcomes have perhaps not helped to solve the everyday problems of the Ghanaian.”
He added that it was for that reason that the university had introduced courses in entrepreneurship and management, which are compulsory for all students who pass through the institution so that research outcomes and innovations could be showcased and possibly commercialised.
Track record
“We are a university with a track record as the best public-funded university as far as science and engineering is concerned and that is why our innovative career fair continues to be one of the main pillars in the training of our students,” the Vice Chancellor pointed out.
Prof. Kuma further noted that over the years, the university had tried to achieve that mandate through a series of innovation and transformational processes in teaching and learning that enabled it to turn out graduates whose high quality outmatched those of their competitors trained elsewhere.
Innovation
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Dreamoval Limited, an Accra-based development-oriented company, Mr Derrydean Dadzie, in his presentation as the guest speaker, explained that innovation was a quest for continuous improvement by making additions to and subtractions from existing initiatives.
He added that innovation distinguished between a leader and a follower, and stressed that without innovation, nothing else happened in the world while ideas without actions were useless.
“Innovation should not be a one-time event. Think infinitely far for improvement and do not only think about the immediate environment, and again, there should not be a limit to any thinking,” Mr Dadzie, a graduate of Ashesi University, with a computer science degree, told the participants.