By Molla Mitiku Ayenew
Knowledge transfer is crucial for success in this time of globalization and this is possible if and only if there are platforms that could bring together pertinent personalities in various fields across the globe.
However, there are no such platforms that could work to bring together scholars to a forum for experience sharing. Consequently, authors and researchers have coerced to keep their Book, Researches and Articles on their shelves as they have no opportunities to publish or present them. Due to this reason, lots of talented works fail to hit their very objectives.
This, obviously, indicates global failure in using world minds for the betterment of respective society in every corner of the globe. This problem is rife in various countries particularly in the developing world. It is crystal clear that even researches conducted at universities on various issues of public concern remain on shelves.
This, I think, is due to lack of well organized and established institutions that could budget finance and arrange platforms for authors and researchers to publish their books and present their important research findings.
Recently, the international community has learnt the emergence of such Institutions aiming to create conducive atmosphere for researchers in any corner of the world. One of these pioneering academies is The Academy of Business & Retail Management (ABRM).
According to documents publicized on its official website, it is “a global academy founded in London in 2006 with the aim of inspiring, recognizing and supporting excellence in business and retail management, throughout the United Kingdom and internationally”.
In accordance to its aim, the academy conducted four international conferences so far. In 2015, it held International Conference on Business and Economic Development, Business & Globalization, Emerging Economies as well as Trade & Academic Research in New York – USA; Dubai-UAE, Kalyan -India and London-UK on March, January, November and August respectively.
It has been bringing all expertise and researchers from all over the world to a platform where they can share their experiences where a number of young researches share the experiences of well celebrated scholars and researchers.
Economic and business related researches of various countries have presented and discussed among those participants of different educational backgrounds and experiences there is obviously knowledge transfer, which could help them back at their respective homes.
Participating in such conferences help scholars and young researchers to attain various approaches and experiences. This is particularly crucial to researchers in developing countries as there are no such opportunities.
However, these researchers have still challenges to use this platform. One among many others is the question of sponsorship. Getting sponsorship is difficult for them because the importance of such platforms is not yet considered well. Another challenge could be the case of Visa.
Developed countries like the United States of America are usually suspicious of anyone from developing countries. They ask those scholars who live on a monthly salary to present them a bank statement showing a huge sum of money, in millions. They also ask them to show documents whether the researchers own residential house or a vehicle, which is ridiculous.
Of course, people who planned to work in the USA or any other developed countries know how to approach the Consular who is in charge of offering and rejecting Visa on an unjustifiable ways. How could an employ who earns about 800 USD a month offer buy or build a residential house or buy a vehicle or save millions in the Banks? I will leave this to the Embassy to react but scholars who want to participate in international conferences have been challenged by this problem.
But I want to underline that there should also be means by such academies to look forward to alleviate challenges the researchers particularly in developing countries could face. It is possible to link them with affiliated organizations and could also take the responsibility of attaining visas for their participants.
What ABRM has been doing is so encouraging. The academy is meaningfully helping scholars in the world present their researches; thereby, get exposures, experiences and research skills. If these two aforementioned problems have solved, I think, ABRM will make greater contribution to the world, especially developing countries.
So far, the academy’s contribution is commendable. It has been doing its level best in knowledge transfer; exerting efforts in creating opportunities to researchers all over the world to develop their research and communication skills.