Creating Investment Dynamism in Entrepreneurship: Experiences at the BA ISAGO University in Botswana

Abstract

In current academic discourse, nothing is as timely as linking academic activity with economic growth. There are many reasons for the move in this direction. First, and foremost, the public, as the major sponsors of education, have long been calling for direct evidence that investment in education, especially higher education has a direct benefit for them beyond the obvious advantage that has been enjoyed by educated men and women over time – until recently, when unemployment encroached into the echelons of the graduate students. Secondly, universities around the globe are going entrepreneurial – not out of their own choice, but mainly because they must sustain themselves in a changing environment whereby governments are reducing their subventions for these institutions. 
Almost universally, universities have devised a new approach to education in their response to the two challenges highlighted above. That approach may take a different form and come by a different name from one institution to another, yet, engagement is the visible and indisputable umbrella under which everything hangs. This paper details how BA ISAGO University continues on its journey to 
develop itself into an entrepreneurial university, initially through producing unique programmes and now through using the outputs from its graduate students to create startups and other forms of academic beneficiation as the students commercialize their research. This paper highlights the challenges met but will also reflect the manner in which those challenges are being overcome. As such, the lessons from the BA ISAGO University experience should serve as an encouragement to other universities that the move to an entrepreneurial university is not only possible but is the ideal model of the University of the Future.