Kenya should emulate China in innovation

In Kenya, we have embraced everything Chinese except intermarriage. In Kenya children model toys using clay but in china children make real dolls which are sold to the Kenyan children. In Kenya’s secondary schools, students are taught to draw the body of an insect and to name the different parts, while Chinese children are taught how to assemble the real body parts of a motor vehicle and also make the vehicles. Which students will gain more knowledge fast hand? Which student will be employed after the end of their education?

In Kenya, the costly and complex regulatory processes are a major stumbling block to commercialization of products invented locally. Many ingenious innovations are gathering dust on shelves as the current legal framework has loopholes on certification of such products and approval for public sale. Many prototypes wait for long before getting regulatory approval. That is unlike China where an innovator is given the necessary support and as the government either buys the innovation or give the innovator space, time and money to develop the innovation. I remember the man who first made a plane in Kenya, it failed the first time, and again recently he tried it again, it failed the second time.

Thomas Edison who invented the light bulb failed 1000 times but eventually he discovered how the bulb works. Our Kenyan inventor of the plane has never got any help from any university, national government as well as county government. How is Kenya supposed to be in line with sustainable development goals of the 21st century? Universities should have taken up his idea and improved it to make this man’s dream come true. Where is Kenya intellectual property institute (KIPI) to protect his innovation and assist him financially?  Where is the National council of science and technology institute to fund the project? All these institutions are failing Kenyans because those who are board members have the necessary qualifications, but they have never innovated, they don’t know the pain of your innovation being rejected or lying on the shelf gathering dust.

Let only innovators be given the mandate to sit on those boards as members and help the upcoming innovators and Kenya will be at par with china. Innovators are crying foul of how they have innovated but regulatory hurdles have stood in the way. Let the national government remove the stringent maze of costly regulatory bottlenecks which make it difficult for investors to partner with institutions to produce items in mass quantities.

The government agencies should ease processes as Kenyans will be blocked from starting factories which are out to create jobs for locals. Universities must be hubs for innovators and a link between industry and academia. If they don’t take such action foreign goods and services will remain the major impediment to industrial revolution in Kenya. Kenya’s economy can be strengthened if local companies and public entities bought local products.