Exhibition showcases innovation

Imagine the horror of watching live on your cellphone as thieves carry off you big screen television while you are visiting friends. This is possible and this mobile technology is on display this week at the Africa on the Move exhibition at the first Africa Forum on Science, Technology and Innovations in Nairobi, Kenya.

The exhibition includes about 40 Kenyan inventors from 26 higher education institutions and the private sector. Exhibits range from a bicycle that could pump water to vaccines that could help to boost your health.

Dr. Moses Rugut, Deputy Secretary of the National Council for Science and Technology, who was heading up the process to put together the exhibition, said the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology wrote letters to institutions asking them to identify potential participants.

He said participants were asked to interpret the Forum's theme, which focuses on youth and human capital development in particular, and to come up with ideas that could be upscaled and even commercialized.

One of the exhibitors, Alex Odundu, a mechanical engineering lecturer from Kisumu Polytechnic, hopes that his participation in Africa on the Move, helps him to get funding to start manufacturing a hiwater-pumping bicycle.