News & Events

BOTEC hosted the National Design for Development Awards 2009/10 on the 23rd April 2010 in Gaborone, Botswana.

BOTEC hosted the RRA meeting on the 13th April 2010 in Kasane, Botswana.

Other news

BOTEC celebrated its 30th anniversary

Botswana Technology Centre is Botswana’s leading scientific and technological research centre and has been for the past 30 years. The organisation’s vision is, “To lead in harnessing innovative science and technology for the transformation of Botswana into a globally competitive nation”, and their mission is, “To provide solutions for industrial and business development through innovative research and application of science and technology”.

The month of August marks the 30th anniversary of BOTEC and this was celebrated with a two-day mini-fair on August 14-15 to give people an opportunity to look back on how far they (BOTEC) have come, what they have achieved as well as to give them an insight of what their plans for the future are. The theme of the celebrations was, “Celebrating 30 years of Science and Technology and making a difference in daily lives”.

Looking back, BOTEC chief executive officer (CEO) Dr Edson Tsiababa Selaolo took the press through their past achievements. Projects that they have initiated and had achieved positive results include the Automatic Weather Station (AWS) which collects data and transmits it via a telemetry system to a central computer for processing and analysis. The AWS is currently being used by the Meteorological Services Botswana.

Another first for Botswana, which is an initiative of BOTEC, is the Kgalagadi Sand Building Block that seeks to develop design mixes for a building block for the Kgalagadi area. “As we all know, currently it is close to impossible to put up buildings in Kgalagadi because of the soil texture, cement can’t hold on long enough. Now what we are doing is to mix the desert sand, calcrete and flyash-extended cement as a binder,” said Mr Selaolo. Still on some of their successful initiatives the organisation has installed solar street lamps in some remote areas of the country and put up a solar chimney to harness sunlight, which will be used to generate electricity.

When asked whether he thinks Batswana are an innovative nation, Mr Selaolo said he believes that Batswana are an innovative nation, mentioning a few projects that Batswana came up with that have won international awards as evidence. And to further encourage more Batswana to participate in the science and technology field, the organisation has annual awards and fairs where locals showcase their inventions and get rewarded for their efforts.

BOTEC and CSIR of South Africa signd Memorandum of Understanding