In response to the Second Call for Concept Notes on ‘Innovation Incubation and Promotion of Targeted Value Chains and Bio-resources Innovation Policy and Sustainability Analysis in Eastern Africa’, the Bio-Innovate Program received a total of 21 Concept Notes from applicants from the six Bio-Innovate Program participating countries of Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
On 1-3 August 2012, the implementing partners for project consortium 1 on ‘Delivering new sorghum and finger millet innovations for food security and improving livelihoods in eastern Africa’ held its monitoring and review meeting in Eldoret, Kenya to discuss the overall progress, achievements and related challenges in the course of the implementation of the consortium project as well as on how best the project consortium team can utilize the remaining time and resources to execute the planned project activities.
The Bio-Innovate Program held a two-day meeting with the project consortium 3 on ‘value added bean technologies for enhancing food security, nutrition, income and resilience to cope with climate change and variability challenges in eastern Africa’ at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) complex in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 27-28 June 2012.
On 26 June 2012, the Bio-Innovate Program Management Team (PMT) met with high-level officials from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) during its monitoring and review mission of the Program supported projects in Ethiopia to discuss the Program progress in general and ongoing implementation of projects in Ethiopia.
The Bio-Innovate Program Management Team (PMT) had a three-day extensive visit of Bio-Innovate consortia project run by Makerere University Kampala (MAK) on 12-15 July 2012.
BioInnovate is a new multidisciplinary competitive funding mechanism for biosciences and product orientated innovation activities in Eastern Africa. BioInnovate will run a Competitive Grants Scheme (CGS) targeted at research in four thematic areas chosen to support the AU/NEPAD agenda for science, technology and agriculture:
Project consortium 5 on ‘integrated process for sustainable agro-process waste treatment and climate change mitigation in eastern Africa’ is a Bio-Innovate consortium project that aims to integrate agro-industrial wastewater treatment with the production of biogas and bio-fertilizer as well as treated wastewater for enhanced agro-processing industrial and agricultural productivity.
Project consortium 4 is one of the nine Bio-Innovate consortia projects whose aim is to create innovative technologies that will produce mushrooms and bio-energy from coffee and sisal processing wastes while reducing environmental pollution in eastern Africa.
As part of the monitoring and review exercise for Bio-Innovate projects conducted between May and October 2012, the Bio-Innovate Program Management Team (PMT) traveled to Kampala, Uganda on 29-30 October to review implementation progress made by project 6 on ‘use of biosciences for value addition and diversification to enhance commercialization of sorghum and millet products in eastern Africa’.
