National Research Foundation Grant holder, Prof Felix Dapare Dakora, Appointed President of African Academy of Science 2017
Prof Felix Dapare Dakora, Plant and Soil Biotechnology Professor at the Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria and NRF grant holder, has been appointed President of the African Academy of Science (AAS), leading the body’s new Governing Council for a three-year term. Prof Dakora replaces Prof Aderemi Kuku, a Nigeria-born mathematician who was President from 2014 to 2017.
Prof Dakora is a recipient of the UNESCO-Equatorial Guinea International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences; the African Union Kwame Nkrumah Scientific Award; and is a Fellow of the Academy of Science of South Africa.
Prof Dakora said, “I am honoured to have been elected as President and look forward to working with the Secretariat and Fellows to drive the agenda of the Academy and science in Africa forward. “It will take our collective efforts to ensure that science is harnessed to improve the lives of Africa’s people and contributes to socio-economic development.”
The AAS is a pan-African organisation headquartered in Kenya, which aims to drive sustainable development in Africa through science technology and innovation. It has a tripartite mandate of pursuing excellence by recognizing scholars and achievers; providing advisory and think tank functions for shaping the continent’s strategies and policies; and implementing key science, technology and innovation programmes that impact on developmental challenges through the new agenda setting and funding platform, the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA). AESA was created by AAS and the NEPAD Agency.