2018 was a great year for innovation in Africa. The transformation of the continent is being carried out by Africans who have the courage to do things differently, often reaping rewards for their effort. It is not easy to keep up with all the rapid changes taking place on the continent. Below are four innovations that in 2018 demonstrated the potential to revolutionize life as we know it in Africa.
Urban-based hydroponic agriculture in recycled shipping containers. Oluwayimika Angel Adelaja is a Nigerian biologist and epidemiologist. Some years ago she began thinking of how to overcome the myriad of challenges small-scale farmers in Nigeria face, such as inaccessibility of relevant information and capital, lack of adequate tools, high transport costs, lack of proper storage for perishable crops, and long distances to target markets. She started a farming project with 10 greenhouses on a 300-hectare farm in a rural area not very far from Abuja. Later, she rethought her business model and began experimenting on hydroponic farming in old shipping containers in Abuja. Hydroponic farming substitutes soil for nutrient-filled water, thereby doing away with the need for land to farm. In early 2017 she was feted by the World Economic Forum for her work. She founded Fresh Direct Produce and Agro-Allied Services which in 2018 entered the local Abuja vegetables market full throttle, targeting corporate clients like hotels, restaurants and grocery stores. Upon harvesting and washing her crop, she is able to deliver it fresh to her nearest customers within fifteen minutes only. Her target is to grow locally microgreens which are imported. Currently she has two sites in Abuja which employ over sixty people, and is planning to expand into Lagos soon.
Solar-powered school bags. Evariste Akoumian is an Ivorian lawyer and tech-entrepreneur innovator. In the course of his travels for work, he encountered the many challenges children in off-grid rural areas face getting an education, primarily lack of electricity, and how it puts them at a disadvantage compared to their urban counterparts. This inspired and motivated him to develop a renewable energy solution for them. Solarpak is a school bag that contains solar cells, a battery and a detachable USB electric lamp. The solar cells on the bag are able to harness solar energy and charge the battery as the child carrying it on the back walks to and from school. With a short charging time of half an hour and a battery life of four to five hours, the battery can power the lamp after dusk. This allows the child to study in the evenings, read more and do homework using good light that paraffin lamps, wax candles and fire do not provide. Currently the bags are manufactured abroad and cost around 20 euros per bag. Evariste has partnered with different individuals and organizations in Ivory Coast, and has been able to sell over fifty-five thousand bags and donate thousands to people and communities in need. He is planning to start local manufacture of the bags in Abidjan and to expand into other African countries like Burkina Faso and Gabon. In 2018 Evariste was feted in the Africa Expansion Forum, the African Prestigioius Awards and the African Talent Awards. His vision is to ensure all children in off-grid areas all over the world, beginning in Ivory Coast, have Solarpak to assist them to excel in their education.
Growing bio-bricks from human urine. Dyllon Garth Randall is a South African scholar in the Water Quality Engineering department of the University of Cape Town. He engages in research on recovery of industrial process wastewater for good use. He is part of a group of researchers in the university who in 2017 were given a one-year feasibility grant by the South African government’s Water Research Commission to do research on how to produce bio-bricks from human urine. Building on work done by an American company BioMASON, which has been successful in making bricks from synthetic urea, Dyllon’s team was able this year to successfully develop bio-bricks from the natural urea found in human urine. His previous work on extracting urea from urine to make fertilizer, which involved innovating special urinals just for this purpose, was helpful. The pilot project used urine collected from men’s urinals in one of the engineering department buildings in the university. The urine goes through a two-stage chemical process that involves addition of industrial lime and special bacteria to produce a solid mass that is shaped into a brick. To make a single bio-brick requires between 20 and 30 litres of urine. The research group is now optimizing the process to use less volumes of urine per brick, adding a third stage that converts waste products of the process into fertilizer, and planning to scale up production by integrating the sewer system at the university with a bio-brick manufacturing facility.
Disease-diagnosing smartphone application. Rose Nakasi is a Ugandan computer scientist and PhD researcher in the Artificial Intelligence laboratory of Makerere University in Kampala. She is the lead scientist in a team based in the laboratory that has developed a smartphone application which uses artificial intelligence to analyze microscope images of blood samples to detect disease-causing microbes. The program has a library of images of infected blood samples, from which it develops criteria for identifying microbes. Deep learning algorithms enhance these criteria when images of new strains of microbes are added to the library. A smartphone with the software is clamped on a microscope’s eye-piece and an image is placed below it. On the smartphone screen the image is displayed, with the microbes circled. Typically, laboratory technicians manually analyze microscope images of blood samples. This takes time (around half an hour) and is prone to human errors that frequently lead to misdiagnosis. The app makes the process faster (can take just two minutes per image), cheaper and more accurate. In 2018 Rose and her research team used the app successfully to diagnose malaria and tuberculosis in small-scale clinical trials in hospitals in Kampala. Rose and her team are planning to roll out the innovation countrywide.
Youth, women, workers and farmers, all of whom are demographic majorities in Africa, are going to be the drivers of change on the continent. Africa’s future depends largely on their input into these changes. Advanced technologies will necessarily be the tool of choice used by them to effect these changes. Positive change is the result of innovation, and no progress has ever been achieved without discontent about the current state of affairs and the desire to improve life using what is available. The above are just a sample of the many different innovations that Africans are developing to transform African societies. This is the African revolution, unfolding through innovation. Each African has a role to play in contributing to making this revolution personal, by doing what they can where they are with what they have.