Engineer David Mulongo, chief executive of Kenya’s User Experience Technologies (EXT), has told his peers can use technology to solve problems they identify.
Similar to other school leavers, fresh out of college engineers in Kenya often struggle to find employment.
Speaking to HumanIPO this situation, Mulongo said, makes engineers sit on skills that would have otherwise used to help society while also earning them a living.
Mulongo said while the situation is bad, it can be reversed if engineers coming from school can embrace innovation instead of going for employment.
“Engineers should identify problems in their areas that can be solved with technology and come up with products to solve the problems instead of focusing on employment,” said Mulongo .
Through his company EXT, Mulongo is using innovation to solve some of the problems and during the eight months he has been in operation his team has managed to come up with about eight products – four of which are under trial and four of which are in production of the prototype.
HumanIPO reported yesterday on some of the mobile applications EXT are set to launch in July.
EXT was founded when Mulongo and his colleagues realised that the country was using more products from abroad at a costly price instead of using home grown solutions and products which could come at a cheaper price.
The trio then decided to come up with a company that would engage the brains of engineers to solve the perennial problems that were plaguing society.
Additionally, the directors of the company wanted people to experience what technology could do for them.
“We sought to achieve that through two areas. Through providing information technology to people to enable them make informed decisions and to develop products that solve problems in the society,” he said.
While coming up with technological solutions to solve existing problems, it is important that one checks that their solution is also sustainable in terms of business, Mulongo warned.
With this in mind the directors of EXT identified problems in the ICT, agriculture, health, manufacturing and building industries which they sought to solve.
The first item on the agenda was to get some capital and they managed to raise KSh4million (US$47,700) that would be used to start the business.
That was followed by recruiting four research and design engineers from different disciplines of engineering who now form the company’s think tank.
The engineers came up with ideas and took them through the screening process to establish which products had a chance of being in the market.
Once an idea had been screened they had to make the prototype to prove the concept, take it to the market so as to get the feedback.
If it gets positive feedback then the company can take it to production.
EXT is currently at the prototype and trial stages for their products, but since word has gone round the concepts have impressed the public so much they have even have an order.
The order in question is for a paraffin birth, a product that is used by cancer patients for therapy and is normally so costly that few people can afford it, but with a homegrown version it will be affordable to everyone.
Other products are a macerator which is used to crush disposable waste products in hospitals and a quadriceps bench which is used in physiotherapy.
For the agriculture industry, EXT also has locally assembled incubators for chickens that will retail for half the price as imported ones.
Builders too have a cause to celebrate as the company has a ballast crusher for them.
Mulongo added: “Innovation is tricky in that sometimes the returns are not immediate and it takes time but pays in the end.”
