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.
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 1st 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
.
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