Prof. Patrick Okori is a Ugandan national who received his doctoral degree from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala in 2004. He received BSc Agriculture and MSc Crop Science degrees from Makerere University in Uganda in 1994 and 1997 respectively. Patrick is an international academic expert in curriculum and program design, educator, trainer, research innovator and scientific leader. During his formative years, Patrick worked at Makerere University, where he played a key role in institutional reform, both in research and training. As a science leader, Patrick established one of the largest multi-disciplinary research programme at Makerere University to underpin training and research.
Patrick was until 2022 a Principal Scientist with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-arid Tropics (ICRISAT) crop improvement, and was the Deputy Director of ICRISAT's Global Research Programme on Accelerated Crop Improvement. Patrick is an expert in plant breeding and has commercialized over 30 varieties of legumes, especially groundnut, that are widely grown in east and southern Africa. Patrick is also expert in technology scaling-out, whose team reaches out annually to over 50,000 households with different products and services (seed systems, agribusiness development, and market led development management). As a science leader he has also led the revamp of groundnut breeding and research for development programmes of Malawi, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Kenya, DR Congo, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Patrick is also a thought leader who has been involved in high level planning, strategy and visioning for national, regional, continental to global agencies. He has contributed to new thrusts and visioning of futures at Makerere University, RUFORUM, ASARECA, FARA, COMESA, AU, (AU-NEPAD- CAADP country investment plans), the CGIAR and ICRISAT. Early in his career, Patrick was part of the team that developed the Eastern Africa's premier agriculture, bio-policy and bio-innovation research programme, called BIOINNOVATE. Patrick is currently the Executive Secretary of RUFORUM a network of 163 Universities in 40 countries of Africa.
