The university is to set up technology transfer offices (TTOs) in five cities.
Hamburg University of Applied Sciences’s technology transfer office, Applications of Life Sciences, has secured funding of €1.1m through the European Commission’s EuropeAid programme.
Dubbed Afrihnet – an acronym for “an ACP-EU Technology Transfer Network on Rainwater Harvesting Irrigation Management for Sustainable Dryland Agriculture, Food Security and Poverty Alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa” – the project is expected to last three years. It will focus on Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and establish dedicated technology transfer offices in the countries’ respective capitals of Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Maputo, and Harare. A dedicated technology transfer office will also be set up in Hamburg.
The technology transfer offices will focus on commercialising promising technology around fluvial water and rain water collection and storage, water distribution, and health care. In fact, more than 300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are suffering from water shortage – on average, each individual only has a fourth of the amount that Western European citizens use – with two-thirds of that part of the African continent classified as either semi-arid or arid.
Together, the technology transfer offices will be employing 100 staff from 20 academic and research institutions, a further 100 employees from non-governmental organisations and local enterprises, 20 policy makers and 80 local community members.
Walter Leal, project leader, said: “Africa desperately needs more efficient water resource management. Many of its rivers now only carry water for a few months a year, which makes agriculture incredibly difficult. One method we are currently considering is storing fluvial water in reservoirs below ground to slow down evaporation.”
