Vidah Mahava

Certified Knowledge Manager for Sustainable Development,
TARI Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute

Knowledge is a gift earned from experience and education. An endless amount of knowledge is flowing around us. It’s impossible to store all that knowledge in our brains. There must be a way to manage this knowledge, and this is how the concept of Knowledge Management came into existence. It has become a necessary discipline for every organization. Knowledge Management (KM) represents solutions that streamline the process of capturing, distributing, and effectively using knowledge. When an organization can easily access, share, and update business knowledge, it can become more productive and cost-efficient. The ability to access the right knowledge at the right time, via a robust knowledge management system, informs accurate decision-making and stimulates collaboration and innovation. One of the critical goals of KM is to ensure the passing of clear and same information among the employees. They must know their tasks and responsibilities. The foremost aim of KM is to foster innovation by cultivating a continuous flow of exact knowledge. Practicing KM in an organization means developing an environment where knowledge flows freely between the members and employees. Any information should be available accurately whenever, wherever, and to whoever required.

These days, KM is also used with the term Technology Transfer which means the delivery or dissemination of the latest information on best management practices or a presentation on the newest technological tools. When I look through the literature on the topic, I find that knowledge dissemination is now widely characterized under the terms ‘Knowledge Transfer’ or ‘Knowledge Translation and Transfer,’ defined as the transformation of knowledge into use through synthesis, exchange, dissemination, dialogue, collaboration and brokering among researchers and research users. The term ‘Technology Transfer’ is becoming increasingly associated with the activities focused on moving a concept along the research-development-commercialization process, ultimately leading to tangible products and technologies farmers can choose from the marketplace. Due to this, The Tanzania Agricultural Research The institute has embraced these terminologies and formed one technical directorate, which is Technology Transfer, Partnerships, and Commercialization, and under this directorate, there are two units, which are Knowledge Management and Technology Transfer and Partnerships.

Keywords: knowledge management, availability, innovation, technology transfer, partnerships