I want to congratulate The Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST) on their production of two research-based innovations to fight COVID-19 that recently attracted external investment. The United Nations agreed to purchase 40 touchless handwashing stations developed by Charles Makamo, a MUST faculty member in engineering. The same week, the Malawi Ministry of Health requested MUST to license them to use the COVID-19 case tracking app that was developed by a group of students.
Either one of these innovations is a huge success for MUST. How is it possible that MUST so quickly produced two innovations to fight COVID-19?
The short answer is that it is due to the people at MUST. The longer answer is that MUST deliberately built a “culture of innovation” and took the risk to invest in building the capacity of their faculty and staff to produce innovation.