Namibian Business Innovation Center

AT is one of 2 advisors for NBIC, which the Finnish government may fund for Polytechnic to foster… business innovation! He participated in a 3-day brainstorming session Apr 2-4 (while K and J played with the local kids and spent an enjoyable morning at the craft center selecting handmade gifts to send to cousin Emma for her 6th birthday). And found it somewhat frustrating for the same reasons that have puzzled us about development of other programs here as well: The plans emphasize buildings and outcomes, not the people who actually have to carry out the plans. Our epiphany was this: we are essentially a business innovation center ourselves. Alan’s analysis of the high mortality of oysters in Walvis Bay has had the growers buzzing for weeks, considering ways to “harden” oysters. After all, wrote Alan, Crassostrea gigas is essentially an intertidal species, and hardening the spat is an essential step in its culture everywhere in the world. In Japan where it is native, scallop shells are hung in Sendai Bay for recruitment, then moved to intertidal racks in a small cove over winter, then moved back to Sendai Bay where the oysters grow in clusters to harvest size. In Washington, oyster shells are packed in mesh bags to receive recruits, and these bags are stacked in piles in the intertidal zone over winter, before being broken apart and scattered for the oysters to grow on bottom. In contrast, hardening has not been part of oyster culture in Walvis Bay. There, oysters remain submerged from the time of settlement, removed for perhaps a day every 6 weeks for cleaning, which chips the thin, subtidal, fast-growing shell. These chipped individuals certainly cannot close up against toxic conditions, and even the intact ones have poor abilities to close. Hardening could help these oysters through some periods like those experienced in March. The oyster growers here are getting other help and advice as well, about triploids, clams, phytoplankton, … and all out of the back of our Kombi! The point is, you don’t get a business innovation center (or a marine lab, or a degree program) through a building and a plan on paper. You get it with qualified people.

It’s funny to me that I regularly give Alan a hard time about not writing up his scientific papers, which on average 7 people ever read (a scientific fact!). But, many more than 7 people have read his oyster mortality report, and they’re actually experimenting with some new practices as a result!