Creativity at its best as Kenyans pull surprises with innovations

The adage necessity is the mother of invention rings true for 25-year-old Peter Mbiria.

The electrical and electronics diploma student at the Technical University of Kenya was one of the star acts at the Pre-Global Entrepreneurship Summit at KICC grounds on Wednesday and Thursday.

His prototype motorised wheel-chair assembled from old DVD player parts and old cassettes attracted hordes of people to his tiny stand.

“A few years ago, a friend had an accident and had to use a wheel-chair. I saw the trouble he went through doing house chores in a less flexible wheel-chair insensitive to his needs,” he says.

“Since 2011, I have been assembling a responsive wheel-chair which responds to the problems he experienced,” he told The Standard on Sunday.

The prototype wheelchair has versatile interchangeable wheels responsive to various terrains. It can fold depending on the nature of one’s disability and is powered by rechargeable battery.

The movements are all controlled through knobs placed on armrests of the chair. Mbiria requires slightly under a million shillings to make the first wheelchair. He hopes the rest of the production will be cheaper.

He also hopes to secure funding through GES so that he can alleviate the suffering of disabled people who either have to use rudimentary and manually operated wheel chairs or import expensive ones.

The same story of invention through necessity applies for Hansel Omondi, 28 and Anthony Mwangi, 26 whose “security robot” wowed many at KICC. Kenyans can actually make robots.

Operating under the company Home Automation and Security Solution, the two have assembled small robotic car fitted with revolving camera to assist in security surveillance. Omondi cites the Westgate Mall terror attack of 2013 as the inspiration behind their innovation.

The robotic car has a detached remote controller and can be operated a kilometre away. It also has a robotic arm which can be used to grasp items for closer inspection in a safer area.

“The mirrors we use to inspect our cars have serious limitations. At night you cannot see anything. Our robot car has lights to illuminate areas of inspection. It can also move further under the car than the mirrors do,” Omondi says.

He says the car would have come in handy at Westgate Mall when security forces struggled to plan their offensive.

They only needed to dispatch one of the robots to survey the areas ahead of them before they moved in.

Besides the security robot, the pair also provides home automation solutions to lock doors, switch on/off TVs, lights and stream footage. The security robot car would cost a modest of Sh70,000 once complete.

GES concept

They too require funding to actualise the dream of helping to secure the country from terror, a vision shared by the underpinning philosophy behind the GES concept.

The innovations at KICC were many and amazing. A quartet of Zachary Kimani, Christopher Mwaura, Stephen Modimu and Julie Mithika have invented water pump which does not need electricity to pump water for as high as 20 feet above it.

The pair, operating under Aptus International Engineering Co. Ltd have partnered with a Germany organization to patent the innovation which uses simple mechanics and physics to operate. They have called it IWHR/hydraulic Ram Pump.

“We are still perfecting it although it’s operational at the moment. I repeat, the pump does not require any electricity or manual application of force to operate,” Chris Mwaura explains.

Innovations are innovations, however simple they seem. At one corner of the exhibition hall on Thursday, Wesley Sigei from Gusii Institute of Technology was shouting himself out of breath in a shrill but assertive voice.

Hustler’s solutions

He was displaying a “five-in-one multipurpose cabinet” dubbed “the hustlers solution” which he has invented together with fellow student Outa Ezekiel.

The facility transforms itself into a drawing table, a bed, a cabinet, a drawer and a conference facility depending on one’s needs.

“See you can sleep on it, comfortably so,” Sigei says as he jumps and folds his legs in a sleeping position: “It cannot fall off because much of the human weight is at the centre which is firmly propped,” Outa adds.

For Patrick Thige, a designer, the pre-GES exhibition was more of networking opportunity as well as selling point for his designs. We found him tucking in Sh1700 after selling a design Kenyan shirt to a customer.

In his stand were portraits of himself selling off design shirts to Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete.

“I have sold him shirts three times before. In all those occasions he has taken my contacts. Unfortunately, I have never seen him wearing any of the shirts I sold him. I don’t know where or when he dons them but that’s none of my business, really.”

Thige wishes he had the opportunity to sell or give Obama one of his design shirts. The spirit of entrepreneurship in KICC on Thursday and Friday was palpable in the crammed exhibition halls.

The best of the innovations were hidden deeper into the crammed up jumbo exhibition tent while the more mundane of the innovations found themselves in good placing at the entrance. Most of these were county exhibits.

Counties miss the memo

County governments appeared to have missed the memo on the philosophy behind the Global Entrepreneurship Summit.

Despite securing ample and most visible exhibition stands at the pre-GES expo at KICC, county governments ended up stocking cash crops, carvings and seeds for innovations.

At the Nairobi County stand, other than the comfy exhibition seats, the only thing exhibited was the smart card facility by Nairobi Water Company.

Machakos County stand was the envy of the rest of the counties. To say the least, tt was the sight of opulence and splendor and had glittery artistic impression of the proposed new city.

Narok County exhibited a stuffed lion and beaded items, the kind usually sold in Maasai market. Murang’a County had just photos of the diversity of the county while Makueni exhibited honey, “pure honey” as every honey seller always insists.

Makueni also exhibited “mabuyu” popular among school going kids. Mandera County displayed what they called “black seed oil” and hibiscus grindings. Taita Taveta’s exhibition hall was full of switched off flat screens at the time we visited and it was not immediately clear what they had been exhibiting.

Isiolo’s stand was laden with yoghurt and fermented milk.

Predictably, Uasin Gishu exhibited maize stalks and mursik guards while Nyeri stocked its exhibition table with “Iriani tea”, “natural herbs” and displayed a humongous picture of the Governor alongside the county’s mission and vision.

In Kirinyaga County stand, the main exhibition commodity was rice and seeds.

Kitui’s stand was stuffed with Kiondos and wood carvings. Kitui also exhibited a variety of precious stones among them red carnets, sapphire, amazonite, limestone and copper ore.

“The reference to Kamuti is traced to lifeline of the kamba people which was trees. Kamba’s life and sustenance obtained from trees and so they tended to value trees,” a guide at the Kitui stand was overheard explaining to visitors who were demanding to see the famous kamuti.

Instead, he showed them the many carvings displayed in the stand.

Kiambu’s exhibition stand was stuffed with “Afia” and “Pick n Peel” drinks. Kisii’s stand, predictably, was laden with soapstone carvings.

One particular carving of Obama with a not so proportionate head stood out and attracted quite a crowd.

Yet all these counties have young innovators who could have exhibited their innovations to the world. Instead, they were crammed in one jumbo exhibition tent and could hardly be noticed.