KENYAN INNOVATIVE TALENTS FOR JOB CREATION AND NATIONAL SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Kenya has one of the highest population growth rates of with over 60% of its population falling within the Y-generation.  A youthful population besides its challenges of demand for education, health services and jobs is a driver to economic growth in terms of the enormous supply of labor that such as population is endowed with which can be harnessed and channeled for national development.

Despite the many challenges, it is important to remind ourselves that our youth are a resource that if channeled appropriately into our national productions systems can be used to create opportunities for jobs and wealth creation. Kenyans are known to be very innovative people. Already the country is known globally for the MPESA innovation that is used to money transfer money using cell phones both locally and internationally.  Some of these innovations are mainly carried out by the youth who explore new ideas on how to solve problems especially using IT technology. Already Kenyans have come up with novel innovations that can help the vast arid areas of this country use very little water to grow their crops, while others have developed gadgets that can help reduce post harvest losses in cereals caused by aflatoxin. A visit to the national Secondary school science congress leaves one overwhelmed by the innovativeness of our Kenyan youth as they translate scientific principles leant in School  into technologies that offer solutions to some of the challenges that our beuaurocrats and policy makers are struggling with such are water purification, increasing dairy productions using locally available animals feed, using household wastes and solar energy to provide ‘clean’ energy such as biogas and solar power as a way of mitigating climate change among many other projects. Exhibitions from the Informal ‘Jua Kali‘ sector and the technical and Vocational training sector paint the same picture of a country full of  people who would want to use their ideas to provide solutions to their daily problems and also make a livelihood out of it.

Such talent needs a framework if the country is to harness the potential that embedded in our youth. Such a framework would include education and public awareness on intellectual property rights (IPR), funding of innovations from development of ideas through prototype to commercialization stage, and establishing incubation hubs for innovations, policies that would encourage the private sectors partnerships and support for local innovation and provision of incentives to local innovators in terms of friendly taxation and low bank interest rates for those who want to move their  prototypes to commercial production.

Already thing are looking bright for the Kenyan innovation sector. For the last four years, the government have been supporting Kenyan who have ideas to develop them into prototypes and products through a competitive innovation grant offered by the National Commission of Science, Technology and Innovation NCSTI) the predecessor of National Council for Science and Technology. The Innovation fund provides 1 million shillings to an innovator to transform the idea into a prototype. Once this has been successfully done and the market feasibility carried out and found viable, NCST have gone ahead to support innovator with a small capital grant of up to 3 million shilling for start commercial start-up. So far a few successful innovators  such as Kupata Technologies that uses 3G remote camera for security surveillance and Mbetsa who developed a cell phone enabled Car tracker. These innovations have been supported by the NCSTI and have already transformed into full commercial enterprises that are not only doing vibrant business but have created employment to other Kenyans. Already the innovation Society of Kenya in collaboration with Kenya Institute of Education and in response to the plan by the Government to provide laptops to Kenyan school going student are have already developed an ipad going by the name the  ‘Swag Educator’ in which the curriculum and e-text books can be uploaded and used by both teachers and students. This innovation have advantage of using solar power and batteries that can be charged as children play in ‘a swing’ during break time or games therefore making it suitable for use in remote  parts of the country that do not have electricity supply.

With the new STI Act 2013, thing cannot be any better. This Act besides creating NCSTI  establishes two other agencies, the National  Research Fund NRF) and the Kenyan National Innovation Agency (KENIA) The NRFs’ mandate is to mobilize fund locally and internationally for Kenya’s research and innovation sector while KENIA is to provide  legal and policy framework for effective development, regulation and coordination of Kenya’s innovation sector for national socio-economic development. Towards this end, KENIA will be an important focal point for tapping into the huge talents that exits in this country for national development. To be able to do this, the private sector particularly venture capitalist, financial institutions and industrialist, research institutions, and the public sector must endeavor to work together. The government on the other hand need to ensure that policies that will facilitate mainstreaming the informal Jual Kali sector into the national innovation system. This sector produce very durable products but have challenges of appropriate machinery and equipment for appropriate product finishing, lack of organized markets, and business financing. This problem therefore makes it very hard for their product to be competitive and to penetrate the international market.  A structured reorganization of this sector by KENIA will not only ensure that our innovators within this sector enjoys better returns from their ideas and work but that the country also earn foreign exchange from export from the sector instead of relying on glossy sub substandard products imported into the country.

Lastly, may I take this opportunity to invite all Kenyans to the 2^nd Science, Technology and Innovation week which is currently going on at Kenya International Conference Centre, Nairobi. This event started on Monday 13^th and will end on Friday 17^th May 2013. The vent has brought together stakeholders within STI sector including academia, research, private sector and international partners to show case research and innovations being done in the country.  This forum provide a forum for our innovators from the informal sector, secondary schools, technical colleges, universities, research institutions, government agencies and the private sector to showcase some of the best innovations and products, Come and appreciate the huge potential that exist in our country and the range of products that our innovators have developed that are already in the market.