Botswana Innovation Hub — Gaborone's Government-Backed Science & Technology Park

The Botswana Innovation Hub (rebranded Botswana Digital & Innovation Hub, BDIH, in the 2020s) is Botswana's first government-backed science and technology park, established in 2010 on a 57-hectare campus near Sir Seretse Khama International Airport in Gaborone. Conceived as part of the Botswana Excellence Strategy to diversify the economy away from diamond mining, BIH was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee under the Ministry of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology, with a mandate spanning ICT, biotechnology, clean technology and mining technology.

BIH delivers knowledge transfer through tenant leasing, the First Steps Venture Centre incubator (operating since 2013), a National Technology Transfer Office (established June 2014) and the Botswana Innovation Fund (established 2017). Park membership grew from 89 to 109 tenants during FY2015/16, and by 2016 BIH projected BWP 1.5 billion in property investment over the following three years. A World Bank diagnostic published in December 2021 found the First Steps incubator managing a portfolio of 60 start-ups from roughly 75 applications a year, and the Innovation Fund supporting 15 companies with conditional grants exceeding P1 million each. In 2022, BIH tenant NantBotswana broke ground on what was reported as sub-Saharan Africa's first COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing plant (Pula Corbevax). In 2024, a dedicated Kitso Ya Setso indigenous-knowledge fund allocated P12 million across 8 of 106 applicants.

The World Bank's independent review is candid about limits: BIH's incubation programmes 'have not yet produced a cadre of founders that can raise capital from the private sector,' and Botswana's wider early-stage finance ecosystem remains fragmented, with only an estimated 10–20 of roughly 1,000 tech-adjacent companies nationally considered investment-ready. BIH's own 2016 annual report likewise shows its flagship Icon Building still under construction and seeking tenants years after its original completion target.

Read the full analysis: https://www.bih.co.bw/