At a meeting in Kumasi, the two institutions acknowledged the need for a stronger collaboration to promote scientific research and development and enhance Information, Communication Technology (ICT) to facilitate accelerated socio-economic development.

Mr. Kwasi Adu-Gyan, the Director-General of AITI-KACE and Professor Kwasi Obiri-Danso, the Vice-Chancellor of the KNUST represented their respective institutions. It is the mandate of the AITI-KACE to establish partnerships and cooperate with other research institutions of higher learning, as a catalyst to grow the ICT sector, Mr. Adu-Gyan said, and appreciated the collaboration, which would help to bridge the gap between the University and the industry.

The Director-General said the AITI-KACE had introduced the High Performance Computing (HPC) system, aimed at helping to deliver reliable and sustainable computing resources to meet the scientific and technological research demands.

Mr. Adu-Gyan underscored the need to create a cluster of HPCs to groom and build young researchers and HPC users to enhance scientific research findings. He observed that AITI-KACE was closer to industry and therefore the collaboration was very prudent, saying, it could easily have first hand industrial experiences, thereby creating a pool of personnel with high expertise for the industry.

Mr. Adu-Gyan said the collaboration required KNUST to select best students for AITI-KACE to support research innovation and development projects, which he noted would create a competitive environment for students to be encouraged to give out their best for available opportunities.

“Aside the HPC, AITI-KACE is developing a state-of-the-art Software facility, and Cloud Technology facilities to introduce relevant software products to make Ghana an innovation hub of the sub-region”, he added.

He was hopeful that the AITI-KACE and KNUST collaboration would leverage the application of Science and Technology by researching and developing local technology contents to help address teething socio-economic challenges.

Prof. Obiri-Danso said a Memorandum of Understanding already existed between the two institutions, adding that, the collaboration would re-ignite the relationship between them to push technological advancement. Prof. Mark Adom-Asamoah, the Provost of the College of Engineering of the KNUST, said he was optimistic that partnership would go a long way to enhance research development between the two institutions.