Why Many promising innovations end up in the gutter after graduation

“All the way from 1983, through the Physics society of Kenya, we recommended that there is need for the country to have a national laboratory for physical sciences. There is none up to now,” Prof Jackton Odote who teaches Electronic and Solar Energy Systems at the Technical University of Kenya says.Odote laments that unlike researchers in fields such as biotechnology and medicine that have Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KariI) and Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) respectively, little attention has been paid to young innovators in the physical sciences once they graduate.By the time John Njoroge was graduating from TU-K Physics class of 2015, he was armed with an innovation he wished to sell to the industry to provide industrial solutions in monitoring and measurements.He says that his project titled ‘GSM enabled level monitoring system’ was intended to solve day to day challenges of oil theft from tankers upon application. Three years after graduating, Njoroge can still narrate his project word by word as if he just worked on it yesterday.LOST CHANCE“With my project, industrial measurements such as liquid levels in a tank, whether overhead or underground, are done using a combination of sensors and results relayed remotely to a user via a text message on a mobile phone,” Njoroge explains.It was this description that wet the university’s appetite and saw Njoroge nominated for an exhibition that was held in Mombasa in March, 2015.The Applied Physics graduate recounts the excitement that engulfed the event as young innovators, mostly college students displayed and explained their innovations to enthusiastic onlookers.Three years later, unfortunately, the 25-year-old says that not much has been done on top of the nods of satisfaction from observers at the exhibition who included key industry players.In fact, according to Prof Odote, only about one out of ten projects that are approved by universities survive graduation.“Students who exhaust the potential of their projects to end up with finished products are those who proceed with postgraduate studies,” Odote says.Odote says that he has approved many ideas which were developed into brilliant innovations that were never mentioned again once the students graduated. He says that he has heard nothing about a brilliant mechanical engineering student who came up with a multipurpose bicycle that could also thresh maize.MEANS TO AN ENDNjoroge’s predicament is not an isolated case. According to Kelvin Kavitu, an Electrical and Electronics graduate from the University of Nairobi, most of his classmates forgot about their project work once they were sure that they had the mark on their transcripts.“Some of my classmates had way better projects than mine but as you know, many things happen after graduation,” Kavitu says.Kavitu says that only a few graduates who were aggressive enough to realise their passion went out of their way to bring their innovations to completion.Eager to build on his project which he called “a PC based function generator,” Kavitu says he approached Centurion Systems, a technology firm that provides technical services to clients who accepted a paid internship with the firm.Kavitu, now 27, who graduated in 2014 says that it was during his internship stint that he put final touches on his campus innovation which he says had encountered several hitches.He blames the loss of brilliant innovations in universities to lack of facilities in most campuses and urges young innovators to approach private organisations where they can sell their innovations.SYSTEMS NEEDEDAccording to Kevit Desai, Linking Industry with Academia chairman, “Kenyan innovators are focusing more on technologies which will create the same impact as mobiles such as Internet of things, robotics and big data to enhance collection of data in remote areas, enhance productivity, efficiency, distance manufacturing and help in defining industrial issues and making decisions.”He says that this shift will add on what we already have in mobile applications and renewable energy systems to define the future of technology.Desai, however, observes that brilliant as innovations are in universities and colleges, they continue to register little or no impact to the innovators and society because of lack of proper commercialisation systems in place.According to Desai, in order for innovation to be commercialised and to benefit social and economic prosperity, a proper structure has to be put in place.“As a country we have done quite well with the enactment of the 2012 Science, Technology and Innovation act. The act for the first time promotes an ecosystem that will encourage innovation,” Desai says.He points to a numbers of agencies within the ecosystem including the National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation, which has a funding board that facilitates individual innovators as well as institutions and Kenya National Innovation Agency, which coordinates innovations.

Why Many promising innovations end up in the gutter after graduation

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