The Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (MUBAS) held its first graduation ceremony on 29th May, 2024, at its main campus in Blantyre. The ceremony, which was the first congregation after MUBAS was unbundled from the Federal University of Malawi in 2021, also installed His Excellency, Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, President of the Republic of Malawi as the first Chancellor of the University. The new Chancellor of MUBAS and President of the Republic of Malawi, reaffirmed his government’s commitment towards the development and strengthening of institutions of higher learning in order to promote innovations in the country. The president said Malawi’s industrialization drive can only be achieved if the country embraces innovations in all sectors and he urged the graduands to produce impactful innovations for the nation and beyond. "When I look at the development projects we are carrying out across the country, I feel excited at how much the face of Malawi will change in the next few years but when I also look at these projects, I look at the indispensable role that our innovators will play in the achievement of our developmental goals," Chakwera further said. Chakwera urged the graduating students to produce impactful innovations for the nation and beyond. He also encouraged them to embrace entrepreneurship as one way of self-upliftment and job creation. "My dream is that you will marry the innovations you are going to create using the skills you have gained here with the spirit of enterprises in order to turn your innovations into wealth creation engines that will create jobs for other Malawians," said the Malawi leader. The President also appealed to the graduands to illuminate the torch of inspiration to others by providing exemplary leadership as the country seeks to attain the 2063 vision. "My dream is that you will remember that in our primary and secondary schools are millions of youths that need your inspiration, your mentorship, your example and support to follow your path," he said. In her remarks, MUBAS-Vice Chancellor, Associate Professor Nancy Chitera, expressed gratitude to the president for his government’s commitment towards increasing access to tertiary education. "This journey began with the bold step in 2020 as the three federated institutions embarked on a path for autonomy, paving a way for innovation, healthy competition and growth. This direction has set the stage for growth and expansion with potential to significantly impact higher education delivery," she said. She added that MUBAS will compliment government’s efforts in increasing access to higher education by expanding student enrollment from ten thousand to thirty thousand students by the year 2030. Madalisto Nkhata, who graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Procurement and Supply Chain, said the knowledge she has acquired throughout her studies will be pivotal in her career. "The knowledge I have gained here will assist me in management of public funds," she said. 114 graduates, 30 of which were female, were awarded certificates and degrees during the congregation. MUBAS offers over 115 programmes at both undergraduate and post graduate level.

“There are a lot of bad reasons to start a company. But there’s only one good, legitimate reason, and I think you know what it is: it’s to change the world,’’ Phil Libin, former Chief Executive Officer of Evernote once said and keeping in tune with such wise words, Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (MUBAS) through its Business Incubation Centre conducted a Business pitching activity, on January 18 and 19, 2024, at its main campus in Blantyre. The initiative comes following the University’s Zantchito entrepreneurship project launched in November 2023, aiming at supporting budding entrepreneurs. Speaking during the event, Upile Mawenda, the Business Incubation Centre Manager at MUBAS, said that the centre organized the business pitching activity to provide incubates with an opportunity to present their business ideas. Out of 49 shortlisted ideas, only the top 30 outstanding ones will proceed to the next level. "We have 49 incubates that are participating in pitching their business ideas, and only 30 will be selected. The whole purpose of this activity, is to provide incubates with the opportunity to convince the funder that their business ideas are viable. We hope that from this, we will have the number that we are looking for,’’ said Mawenda. The Business Incubation Centre Manager added that the project is currently targeting the idea stage, supporting the Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) that have just started. The selected ideas will proceed to the next stage of developing prototypes. Hastings Lisuntha, one of the incubates pitching his business idea in the ICT sector, expressed his excitement and hopes that if his business secures funding, he will be among those contributing to solving challenges in Malawi’s ICT sector. The 49 incubates went through an intensive training, and they presented diverse areas of focus including Agriculture, Cosmetics, Food processing, and ICT . MUBAS secured a grant from The European Union (EU) to fuel the aspirations of young entrepreneurs. Through this initiative, successful incubates will each receive support of not less than US$2250.