The Minister of Science Technology and Innovation Dr. Monica Musenero has underscored the important role the media should play to crate awareness and understanding of Uganda’s innovations and scientific findings in an effort to have sustainable national development .
“The need to communicate scientific findings and innovations should be aimed at creating public trust, encourage the building of partnerships and collaboration. Science communication should also put the future in mind -especially about market penetration by Uganda’s innovators ,” Dr. Musenero stated during a media penal dialogue at the on going National Science Week 2023 at Kololo Independence grounds.
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Joel Kigozi a media personality said media houses and journalists who cover the science and innovation beat should deliberately “inform to transform” Uganda . “ The media should be deliberate in shaping Uganda and Africa’s development narrative . We need to have a mindset change as Ugandans to appreciate and support our innovations and products on the market ,” he stressed .
Another media practitioner Solomon Serwanja called for the provision of adequate resources to facilitate specialized science and innovation journalism in Uganda and reduce the high labour turnover of talented people in the journalism profession.
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The Deputy Managing Direct at Uganda ‘s national broadcaster UBC ,Maurice Mugisha expressed the need to profile Uganda’s outstanding innovators across the different sectors in the science space to tell their inspiring stories in simple ways .
He also called on the legacy media to expand their communication channels in order to reach the young people who receive their information on social media tools like WhatsApp and Tik Tok.
Dr.Innocent Nahabwe , said science and innovations communication should be “interesting and sexy” to capture the young audiences .
He advised the Ministry of STI and innovators generally should employ the services of veteran journalists and communication experts who are good at the journalism job.
Nahabwe also called for the establishment of an information resource center for science and innovation and encourage the scientist to tell their stories in very simple language for public buy in.
Veteran journalist who is also a scientist ,Dr. Charles Wendo, presented a paper about the role of the media in promoting os STI in Uganda . He advised journalists to create a rapport with scientists and innovators to ensure accuracy and report science stories that are interesting and simple for public understanding .
