Things to know about Young Kenyan Innovators/Entreprenuers

When Obama came to Kenya July this year he said; "When it comes to the people of Kenya, especially the youth, I believe there is no limit to what you can achieve, you can build your future right here, right now." These are the steps some of young Kenyans have taken to create their future right here in Kenya. In 2014 I met Steve Ogolla Osumba in one of the Kenya Competition for colleges and university students at Lions of Science. My project made it to the shortlisting stage but I did not make it to the final stage while Steve project made it final stage but did not make it to the top three finalists. From that stage Steve have not been silent on working on his project and other projects and due to this he submitted another project to Lions Science for the second and fortunately he made it to the top three winners.  Steve's project is on (innovation/invention, Agriculture and Energy).

Before we know the future, it is very important to know our past. What is Steve’s journey? Before exploring more on Steve’s journey let us know little about Lions of Science an organization which have helped many young Kenyans in their entrepreneurial ventures. Lion of Science (LoS) is a charitable organization registered in Nairobi and Berlin. It aims to yearly award Kenyan college and university students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) for their creative and innovative, early-stage projects. Our main objective at LoS is to promote Science and Innovation through integral capacity building and entrepreneurship. LoS is currently operational in Kenya and looks forward to rolling out its activities to other East African countries.

The organization is designed to yearly award Kenyan STEM students who have innovative, creative and practical approach ultimately aiming to improve socio-economic standards of living in the respective communities, in Africa and  internationally. The LoS Awards include prize money which is for further development of the projects, professional mentorship and project incubation at LoS partners like iHub or NaiLab with the objective of supporting students to unfold the potential of their proposed projects.

Now on Steve’s journey one of the Lions of Science beneficiary. It has been a long journey from high school to university or what is referred to us as “Lean Start-up Methodology”. If you have a talent don’t sit on it do something about it. All of us have ideas but is only those who do something about them who succeed as Nolan Bushnell keenly put it, “Everyone who’s even taken a shower has an idea; it’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference”. For you to make a difference you have to do something. 

This is my journey Steve says, “My innovation begun way back in High School, St. Joseph School Rapogi, where I was involved in several projects in Physics and Chemistry. At this level we tried hardcore projects including wireless transmission of electricity to generation of electricity through vibrations from pedestrians’ feet and passing vehicle, we were not undertaking the projects for any commercial reasons but we were doing it for Fun.

Things changed when I joined Technical University of Kenya to pursue my degree in Mechanical Engineering, I realized that I could make my ideas into commercially viable products and that was the challenge. Our first project was on energy, it was actually a design project given to us (group members: James Wanjohi, Joseph Sila and Eliakim Abicha) by our Lecture. We did a lot of work on it for that reason therefore we opted not to leave it at the class level and signed it up for The Lions of science awards. It was a very challenging process but we made it through all the short listing to the final stage. Our project was not picked among the best three that year so we had to go back to the drawing board.

Our failure to make it that year was not a hindrance to us neither was it a discouraging factor but it acted as a stepping stone to success since we learnt a lot from it. My team and I decided to sign up for the second time for the lions of science awards. This time it was Project Horae, the project is an agricultural and ICT based which aims to solve irrigation problems technologically at the same time collecting Agri-tech data from the Farms in real time to help improve farming, Project Horae also give the farmer full control of his/her irrigation system regardless of where he/she may be. After going through several challenges which included insufficient funds and data to run our prototype, Project Horae made it to the final round of Lions of Science. We were able to be the 1^st runners up after an intense pitching, I got to say that all those projects were good and they all deserved to be winners which they all are. Lions of Science has offered us a lot of help and their mentors are amazing. We hope to take Project Horae a notch higher since this was just but a beginning for us. If you got any project out there which you think can change the lives of people, what are you waiting for? Go for it your time is now”. 

If you want to know more about Steve’s project or you would like to invest in this project to empower young Kenya innovators to make a Kenya better place then reach us through chemistrybiochemistryacademy@gmail.com .