Vice-President charges Academic City University College to lead digital manufacturing

The Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has inaugurated the Academic City University College, with a charge on the university college to lead in digital manufacturing.

Dr Bawumia said there was the need to explore and support a move into digital manufacturing as Ghana had a probable comparative advantage in the area.

Digital manufacturing is a technology-based approach to production that links different data silos and processes in the manufacturing life cycle so that stakeholders can make better business decisions comprehensively and at each step.

He said “we believe that as you move into Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics, and 3D printing, we need to leverage all of these into the manufacturing sector,” adding that there were many parts like medical parts, car parts that could be 3D printed.

“I am going to challenge [the President of Academic City] Prof. Fred McBagonluri, who is an inventor and has already written a lot on the issues of manufacturing, so the mechanics in Suame can use and explore a lot of parts that Ghana could manufacture digitally and export,” Dr Bawumia said.

He urged the university, which is a premium Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics tertiary institution, to help move into digital manufacturing to create more jobs and more incomes for the people of Ghana “And we will support you and work with you through the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission".

Vision

He said the vision of Academic City was not only in line with government’s vision and goals but also in tune with global human resources demand, noting that its establishment to provide innovative programmes in order to produce well-equipped graduates to become relevant in the job market could not be overemphasised. 

He said the government of Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo would continue to foster and support the partnership between government, universities, research institutions, and the industry at large to actualise the country’s digitalisation goal. 

Prof. McBagonluri said, “the unversithy college’s vision is to become a world-class centre for learning, innovation, and entrepreneurship, where future leaders are nurtured for global leadership and national development.

2023 Presidential Charter 

He said the inauguration marks the beginning of the Presidential Charter in 2023, which would build confidence in parents across the sub-region, leading to the creation of a new and dynamic workforce.

He said the world needed a workforce that could find opportunities in complexity and elevate the aspirations of a nation, noting that government alone could not educate all but could create the right conditions to encourage and support private equity to augment its efforts.

The Chairman and Founder of Academic City University College, Dev Varyani, said a country’s higher education system, with all its flaws, remained a key part of its strategic reserve, and that governments needed to support all the serious players in the industry.

Mr Varyani said the school believed that the actual meaning of education was action, “so we put action to our words and deeds and built this campus to achieve our vision; and lastly, we didn’t want to confuse education with wisdom”. 

He noted that the role of the teacher was to create the conditions for invention rather than provide ready-made knowledge, adding that education should be a rewarding experience, which allowed people to think, imagine, question, doubt and solve problems.