Gaboneco: University Omar Bongo’s Modernization Continues

Université Omar Bongo’s Modernization Continues

October 8, 2014

The University Omar Bongo’s meeting room was recently the stage of the official presentation of the campus master plan by the Gabon-Oregon Transnational Research Center on Environment and Development.

Began in January 2014, the development of the master plan of the University Omar Bongo is well underway, as is evident from the work meeting that recently took place in Libreville between the heads of the UOB and the representatives of the Gabon-Oregon Center, lead by the head of the project, Zoe Anton.

Presented by the Transnational Research Center on Environment and Development, this master plan aims for the organization and the transformation of the first Gabonese university campus, to give it a futuristic vision modeled on the image of Western universities.

Developed by the Urban Design Lab of the University of Oregon, the Gabon-Oregon Center, UOB students, and professors from the Department of Letters and Human Sciences, Law, and Economics, this project is bound to allow the Gabonese university to respond to international competition.

For the President of the UOB, Marc Louis Ropivia, “this project is recording itself in a context of modernization of our university, at a period where the landscape of higher education in our country and beyond is becoming more and more competitive.”

For the realization of the project, estimated at about 1000 billion XAF, the Gabon-Oregon Center set up a partnership between the University Omar Bongo, the Urban Design Lab of the University of Oregon and the National Agency of Public Works (ANGT) to examine alternatives for sustainable organization.

According to Francis Bivigou, director of the Gabon-Oregon Center, the concept of reorganizing UOB shouldn’t be limited only to buildings, but should equally reach out into the lives of professors and students, and into all the factors that influence university life in a city.

As a reminder, the Gabon-Oregon Center is the fruit of a partnership between the Gabonese government and five universities of the State of Oregon in the United States. The idea is to allow university exchange in the fields of research, the environment, education, and ecology.

Link to original article (French):
http://www.gaboneco.com/m/index.php?page=ACTUALITE&id=33742

PDF version of translated article:
UOB October Article