The entire world has this belief that Africa can not produce its own scientific inventions, and one may ask if that is true? This myth can be traced back to the slavery era, where there were systems that made Africans feel inferior. They thought that nothing fruitful could come out from the continent and to make matters worse, the myth is even reinforced in history books which hail only scientific innovators from the developed countries. However, Africa has its own innovators, who also contributed towards the modern world.
In fact, African scientific innovators also made an impact on science and technology as well as medicine. These include the biomedical engineer Selig Percy Amoils, electrochemist Rachid Yazami, nuclear scientist Sameera Moussa, palaeontologist Berhane Asfaw, surgical pioneer Haile Debas not also forgetting Nigeria’s Kunlé Adeyemi who had built a floating school to deal with his neighbourhood’s flooding issues. Thérèse Izay created a humanoid traffic robot to make the Congo’s roads safer. Jamila Abass invented cellular technology to empower small-scale farmers in Kenya.
Africa needs to start showing to the world that it is capable of producing its own innovators by investing in the continent’s youth and creating opportunities for the new generation of African inventors and innovators to take up their place on the global stage and equip youth specifically with the skills needed to build the continent.
There are some programmes run before to empower youths, for example, the African Youth Forum for Science and Technology launched in 2005 to provide young African people with a platform on which they can play a role in policy and decision-making processes.
South Africa has not been left behind. The Southern African country has set up an initiative called the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement which provides young people with the chance to get involved in advancing science and technology in Africa. These initiatives are needed as they can motivate young people in Africa to take science and technology seriously.
Although most African governments have come to recognise that the only way forward is through home-grown science and technology but are universities keeping up the pace? Some institutions have set the pace, such as Pan-African University established by the African Union Commission.
The idea was to prioritise science, technology and innovative research that is uniquely African and to highlight the kind of work that’s coming out of the African continent. Such action is a milestone towards Africa to start to recognise its potential and hailing its innovators.
There is need for more of these sort of initiatives because as long as the continent fails to recognise that the myth of itself as not innovative is just that a myth that Africa can not really move forward yet it actually has the potential.
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