Professor Olalekan Abiodun Akinbo has worked for the African Union Development Agency NEPAD since 2012 as a training adviser in the field of biotechnology and biosafety at Michigan State University for a year. First worked on contract as the Nigeria Coordinator till December 2014, after as a Project Staff under the AU-NPEAD African Biosafety Network of Expertise (ABNE) programme, as Programme Office in Kampala, Uganda. Later reassigned to work in addition to the African Biosafety Network of Expertise (ABNE) role with Integrated Vector Management (IVM) in the Burkina Faso Office as Senior Programme Officer, and currently, Supervisor/Head of the African Union Development Agency NEPAD Centre of Excellence in Science, Technology, and Innovation, where he lead the operationalisation of the Centre.
In his current position, he has operationalised the Centre and worked with a sustainable business plan to bring the Centre into visibility. This has been done with different international partners showing interest in partnering with the Centre on numerous innovation/research activities.
Prof Akinbo has been able to lead a team to engage with policymakers, communicating science and technology within and outside Africa, and this has enabled him to build a stronger network, on which the Genome Editing initiative, currently being run as a pilot in selected member countries building a success story. With this stronger network, high-level government officials in these pilot countries have bought into the idea and have expressed strong commitments to resources to appropriate institutions and support the adoption of genome editing to increase agricultural productivity in Africa.
Prof Akinbo's background is in agronomy, plant pathology, plant breeding and genetics, and as a motivational team builder and leader with comprehensive organisation skills.
Prof Akinbo is a biotechnology researcher with expertise in research coordination as well as IT, and research collaboration within NARs in Africa. A fellow of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for capacity building for African Scientists for a post-doctoral at Michigan State University, United States, and a Rockefeller pre-doctoral fellow in CIAT, Colombia. Skilled in developing innovative research designs, building relationships and networks across a wide variety of groups, and designing and implementing training programmes in the use of custom software applications in the research environment. I have direct experience in effective managerial skills and strategic communication skills within a dynamic international and national team environment.
