Via email, ICRISAT Happenings tells me that a lady from Zimbabwe, Rachel Chikwamba, has been selected as the next Director General, DG, of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, which is based in India. That will be 2020. Above, Ms Rachel's photo I superimposed on the scanned image of the cover of my 7th & final book published by ICRISAT in 2014: ICRISAT & PARTNERS: Thinking Globally, Acting Globally, 102 pages, 49 photographs in full color. ICRISAT takes care of you by taking care of your work. I was then international consulting writer of ICRISAT; PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar was then DG of ICRISAT. In thinking globally and acting globally, Mr Dar lifted ICRISAT from the bottom to the top of the ranks of the 15 international centers under the CGIAR Group.
On our book's cover, Mr Dar is 2nd from right; to his left, someone from ICRISAT is explaining to Bill Gates, to his right, about a unit of this international agency. In Chapter 25, page 99, I call Bill Gates one of "The 3 Wise Magi Of Science" for being one of ICRISAT's ambassador of goodwill. If you can recruit Bill Gates to your side, you must be somebody who has an idea he likes.
This is the same William Dar we now have in the Philippines as Secretary of Agriculture.
After Mr Dar as DG, David Bergvinson from Bill Gates' Microsoft became DG. For some reason, Mr Bergvinson did not finish his 5-year term; anyway, it is he whom Miss Rachel is going to "replace" early next year.
Question: Is Miss Rachel equal to the task?
Paco Serema, Chair of the ICRISAT Governing Board, says of her:
A researcher at heart, Dr Chikwamba has progressed to management of increasingly significant portfolios, with the most senior positions being at Group Executive/Vice President level at Africa’s premier research and development institution, CSIR, which has a mandate to improve the quality of life of people in Africa and beyond.
CSIR is the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research. On its own webpage, it says[1]:
CSIR Vision: We are accelerators of socio-economic prosperity in South Africa through leading innovation.
So this is where Ms Rachel is coming from. Compare that CSIR Vision with this simple ICRISAT Vision when Mr Dar was DG:
Science with a human face.
Let us grant that both the CSIR and ICRISAT are going after prosperity; the difference is that CSIR wants to be the leader to accelerate prosperity via leading innovation – ICRISAT wants to play as a team so that science is guaranteed to serve the people, not necessarily to accelerate prosperity and not necessarily via leading innovation.
I take it that the CSIR with Ms Rachel is the leader but not necessarily of a team – in contrast, ICRISAT worked as a team, with Mr Dar as Team Captain.
We need a leader yes but, emphasis on the team, we need more a Team Captain. PH Agriculture is blessed with one!@517
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