Prof. David Kaplan speaking at UNU-MERIT.

A lively photo slideshow heralded the opening of the third Charles Cooper Annual Memorial Lecture on 24 June 2009 at UNU-MERIT. This year’s speaker was Prof. David Kaplan (University of Cape Town).

In his lecture, “Science and Technology in South Africa: Past Performance and Future Prospects”, Prof. Kaplan gave a grand overview of South Africa’s innovation and technology performance since the country’s abolishment of the apartheid regime in 1994. He furthermore critically analysed the current state of affairs and presented alternative solutions to boost South-Africa’s technology and innovation commitment in order to tackle societal issues.

For more information about the speaker and a video recording of the lecture, see merit.unu.edu/charlescooper/lecture3.htm. The lecture video is also available of the UNU-MERIT video channel.

UNU-MERIT launched this lecture series in 2007 to commemorate the contributions of Charles Cooper, founding director (1990 to 2000) of the Maastricht-based United Nations University Institute for New Technologies (UNU-INTECH, now UNU-MERIT). The purpose of the lecture series is to contribute to better public understanding of science, technology and innovation in the development process.