A new Technology and Innovation Support Centre (TISC) was launched, on Tuesday, at the Integrated Polytechnic Regional Centre (IPRC)- West, in Karongi District. It is expected to impart technical and scientific knowledge as well as protect intellectual property ownership.

The purpose is to enhance access to technical and scientific information as well as encourage innovation without worry that someone else might steal the intellectual property or idea of the author, according to government officials.

The Director General of Trade and Investment at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Robert Opirah, said the TISC would enhance research knowledge.

"There are many researchers worldwide who have done studies on different subjects, including industries, trade, arts, among others. These researchers have helped countries in America, Europe and Asia develope. We want to find out how Rwanda can adopt a similar model,” he said.

The establishment and development of Technology and Innovation Support Centres is a response to the challenges highlighted by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)’s Development Agenda that: "…despite the important scientific and technological advances and promises of the 20th and early 21st centuries, in many areas a significant ‘knowledge gap’ as well as a ‘digital divide’ continue to separate the wealthy nations from the poor”.

The campaign began in 2009 from a conference of WIPO member states in Geneva.

The WIPO’s Technology and Innovation Support Section Officer, Ituku Elangi Botoy, said the aim of the TISC project is to enable beneficiary countries enhance their level of technical and scientific knowledge.

"Rwanda will have access to technologies and scientific publications which have enabled Europe, North America, Japan, China, India, Brazil and Argentina to develop their economies,” he said.

He said within the framework of the TISC project, there are over 90 million technologies and more than 40,000 scientific publications stored in specialised data bases.

Students said they have been facing a challenge of lack of access to some crucial information, which has been a hindrance to their innovation.

They said now with the new TISC they would widen their innovation.

"While searching for information about a given technological product, we reached a stage where they show us only drawings but could not provide explanation about it. Some critical information was also inaccessible as it was charged,” Jean Paul Rukumbuzi, a student in level two Technical engineering at IPRC West, said.

Opirah noted that the project will also solve the issue of stealing or plagiarising intellectual property, which was detrimental to genuine authors.

"One might spend up to seven years conceiving an innovative idea or inventing a given product, but tomorrow someone comes and steals their product, make more copies of it and then sell them. This greatly discourages the author as they did not enjoy the fruits of their sweat,” he said.

Product authors have to register them in their country but also in other countries because the product is protected where it was given a patent, he said.

Generadi Segikwiye, the legal affairs officer at IPRC West, expressed concern over difficulties for an author to travel in all countries to have their product registered.

But Botoy, said through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), WIPO will be offering support in this regard, because there are only 12 months given to the author to have travelled the whole world to register their work after its publication.

Over two years of IPRC West’s establishment, students, with the help of their teachers have produced a number of innovative and creative products, including identifying a boat accident threat while in water through a mobile phone technology, starting a car by using a mobile phone, turning lights on and off by clapping hands and using a computer to perform various activities that would otherwise need many people, among others.

Jules Nsengiyumva, in charge of intellectual property at the Registrar General’s Office at Rwanda Development Board (RDB), said genuine product authors, mainly in technology and innovation sectors, are not the ones benefitting from them.

He urged all the authors to have their works registered as soon as they produce them.

The Vice Principal of IPRC West, Odette Murebwayire, said the students’ innovations were yet to be registered.

We want to have those products registered for protection purposes and later publish them to benefit the Karongi community and all Rwandans in general, she said.

In 2013, a TISC was established at the National Kigali Public Library considered to be the central point within a TISC network in Rwanda.

However, government argues that having TISCs in IPRC and technology colleges and universities would yield considerable results as that’s where people in the innovation, creative and scientific research are largely based.

The third TISC is to be launched on Friday at Tumba College of Technology in Rulindo District.

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