Business Daily (Nairobi)
Macharia Waruingi And Jean Njoroge
2 July 2008
opinion
In commenting on our recent article on nanotechnology published in BD Africa, Paul Kimani correctly stated that "it is a technology that will impact our lives in the coming decades and everyone ought to know about it." Even with an admission of the critical importance of nanotechnology to human development, Mr Kimani went on further to suggest that thinking about implementing nanotechnology in Kenya is hype.
The answer is that nanotechnology is not hype. Nanotechnology is a reality we must embrace and learn well if we are going to be competitive on the global platform.
Africa missed the industrial revolution during industrialisation of nations. We also missed the information revolution upon the advent of information and communication technologies.
Not only are we still struggling to industrialise, we are far behind on the information front. Granted, many leaders in Africa are working, albeit slowly to get Africa plugged into the information superhighway.
The East African Submarine Cable System (EASSY), designed to link up the East African countries to the information superhighway is one such effort.
Yet, two decades after the advent of information super highway we are not fully plugged in.
Nanotechnology, which Mr Kimani suggests is hype, is the third revolution. There is no doubt that revolutionary work is challenging. The fact that the work is challenging does not mean that we should run and hide our heads in the sand like the ostrich, and hope for the best.
Some people view nanotechnology as hype, just like many viewed the evolution of computers. Thomas Watson, the chairman of IBM in 1943 said: "I think there is a world's market of maybe just five computers." Ken Olsen, president and chairman of Digital Equipment Corporation in 1977 said: "There is no reason why anyone would want to have a computer in their home."
Fast forward to 2008, and what are do we talk about? There is no reason why anyone should not have a computer in his or her home. What happened to the computer? The hype became a norm.
There is no question that nanotechnology will impact every aspect of our lives in the next decade. We completely concur with the writer that introducing nanotechnology in Kenyan schools is a daunting process. Should we always shy away from challenges?
When are we going to stop procrastinating, and waiting for someone else to do our job? It is also a fact we are in an era of globalisation. Our future generation must be able to compete at the global level.
To shy away from introducing technology in our education system is to deny our own nationals the possibility of competing at the global platform. We have heard talk about creating centres of excellence in science and technology in Kenya, built along the framework of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), or the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).
Creation of such centres of excellence will require us to use the full force of our brains to figure out how we can make such centres come alive. Developing competence in nanotechnology is no simple matter. Training our people to win at the global level is no simple matter. To win we must, lest we perish after missing yet again the third industrial revolution.
We strongly encourage the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) and similar institutions that have communicated an open desire to develop leadership in science, technology and development to continue with the good work. As Mr Kimani points out, the amount of capital investment needed to create the research facilities for nanotechnology is huge. Our universities currently do not have such huge amounts of money.
Lack of money in the universities does not mean that such money is not available. The lack of money for research and development is a challenge to the university leaders to think out of the box, and look for non-traditional sources of funding for research, development and commercialization of sciences.
One mechanism that JKUAT and such innovative schools can employ to gain access to non-traditional sources of capital is creation of a special purpose entity, or a joint venture to receive funding for research development, and commercialisation of science, and technology.
For example, if the JKUAT decided to use a special purpose entity model, the university could create special purpose entity as a corporate body to fulfil a narrow objective such as funding the risky commercialisation process. Such an entity would operate outside of the school, and would to receive finding for specific work.
Creation of a joint venture with the industry is a better approach to gaining capital. A joint venture is formed when two or more parties come together to pool resources to develop a joint economic activity. In a joint venture the venturing parties usually agree to create a new entity by both contributing equity, mainly in form of cash.
A school may not be in a position to make cash contributions into the joint venture. This is not a problem. The school's contribution in knowledge is considered capital contribution, otherwise referred to as sweat equity.
Formation of such a joint venture allows the school to contribute sweat, and of course intellectual equity. The business people and non-business individual investors contribute equity in form of paid in cash. International donor community and international investors contribute to the joint venture by purchasing stake in the venture.
A joint venture arrangement allows the school to gain access to cash for research, development, and commercialization of science, and technology. The joint venture can authorise shares of common stock, and have them traded in the open stock market such as the Nairobi Stock Exchange. Creation of such joint ventures to support science, technology and development is not out of the scope of imagination of Kenyans.
For example, Ustawi International, a US based Kenyan owned corporation has developed various models of creation such financing instruments that will enable Kenyan education system to find money to stay abreast of global competition in science, technology and development.
Ustawi emerged as a mission based enterprise from the Knowledge Development Network Central (KDNC). Ustawi could facilitate the formation of such a joint venture for JKUAT. Once the joint venture is formed, the investors in the joint venture would agree to share the revenues, expenses, and control of the venture. A joint venture differs from strategic alliance. Participants in a strategic alliance do not contribute paid in cash as equity.
Creation of the joint venture allows opportunity for injection of capital into the education system. Such money can be used for simplifying theoretical models in nanotechnology to a level that can be taught in schools.
With the necessary leadership from the academic institutions and the government, and with appropriate participation of the business community, international investors and donor communities, Kenya will navigate gently in this technology area, and come out as a winner in this third industrial revolution.
As Kenyans, we must refuse to be told otherwise. With extraordinary thinking we will discover extraordinary sources of resources that will help us overcome the impossible.
Dr Waruingi and Ms Njoroge are members of Knowledge Development Network.
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