The Kenya National Innovation Agency (KeNIA) has unveiled the winning Innovations for the 2020/2021 Leaders in Innovation Fellowship cohort.
The ten innovations will undergo a five months rigorous training program from Feb 2021 to June 2021, and additional five months remote support culminating in November 2021. The trainings and support are organized by the state agency in partnership with the Royal Academy of Engineering based in the United Kingdom.
The training program will contain three introductory training modules, 12 training modules, one in country training program and one residential program.
2020/2021 LIF cohort
1. Akimaa Africa Limited
Akimaa Africa Limited is an agro processing company that seeks to strengthen the local food system through food innovations.
Awarded in the Food Technologies category, they process Ready-to Use therapeutic foods for treatment of malnutrition among children in the rural communities of Kenya. The company uses locally sourced raw food materials, making it affordable for all especially those at the bottom of the pyramid.
2. Tiba-Vent Ventilator
Awarded in the Health Technologies category, Tiba ventilator is a low cost mechanical ventilator used for combating COVID-19 pandemic and other respiratory illnesses.
The ventilator has remote ventilation capabilities allowing one health officer to monitor and control several ventilators at a go just from their computer.
3. Ecohub Solutions
Awarded in the Energy & Manufacturing category, Ecohub solutions have invented organic, affordable and eco-friendly products that rapidly bio-convert organic solid waste and sewage into bio fertilizers and biofuel. The innovation promotes food security, clean energy, clean rivers and climate change mitigation. Littering, burning of waste, hiring expensive exhauster services and use of chemicals on waste are averted.
4. Circular Cement
Awarded in the Housing category, the circular cement is an innovation that makes use of locally available materials such as rejected fired clay bricks /clays hence provide low cost and environmentally friendly cement for housing projects to low income earners.
The circular cement can be produced virtually in all counties unlike the convectional cements which require specific raw materials and transportation.
5. Clean Air ke
Clean Air ke has come up with Outdoor Air Pollution controllers that help in cleaning of the air through an inlet, a purification mechanism and an outlet to bring out clean air.
Awarded in the Housing category, this innovation seeks to address the deaths resulting from outdoor air pollution. The World Health Organization (WHO) attributes 4.2 million deaths annually all over the globe to Outdoor air pollution. This is about 6% of global deaths
6. Jay Leatherman LTD
Awarded in the Energy and Manufacturing category, Jay Leatherman LTD have innovated a cleaner leather processing technique using enzymes.
7. Kulaorganic Enterprises
Kulaorganic Enterpises’ innovation uses intelligent sensor technologies to capture critical information on a beehive's activities such as its weight, temperature, sounds, and vibrations. The data will then be relayed to the cloud, where big data analytics is applied to provide bee farmerswith insights on their bee colonies' health.
Awarded in the Energy and Manufacturing category, this Solar-powered remote beehive management system will eliminate the need for repetitive physical check- ups attributed to the spread of pests, in addition to helping bee farmers lower their operational costs since they will not have to pay bee experts for unnecessary trips to their apiaries.
8. Green Pencils Limited: Infinity Studs
Awarded in the Energy and Manufacturing category, Infinity Studs is a Kenyan innovation designed and developed to improve night driving visibility while introducing the fail-safe advance road warning studs, thus reducing human error which in turn will reduce the rate of road accidents in Kenya and indeed the continent.
9. Cook and Light Clean Technology
Cook and Light is a device that converts waste heat energy produced during cooking process into electricity. The electric energy produced is either used directly or stored in the energy storage devices and used later as household electricity. Awarded in the Energy and Manufacturing category, this innovation focuses on the 7th UN SDG which aims at wiping out energy poverty by the year 2030. Despite significant advances in electrification, enhanced by solar systems, universal access to electricity is far from being achieved.
10. Delivering Bio-gel Fuel to Rural Households
This innovation deals with bio-alkanol gel - a thick liquid fuel made from fruit waste and other bio based additives and binders. The gel burns with a clear flame without smoke or soot and is comparable in terms of cooking efficiency to gaseous cooking fuel such as LPG. The gel fuel is reusable for subsequent fireplace sessions and attains optimum operating temperature in less than 1 minute after ignition. To minimize reliance on wood-based fuel and paraffin, the project seeks to commercialize this renewable biofuel. The bio-alkanol gel also has the potential to repel mosquitoes that cause malaria.
The Leaders in Innovation Fellowships Programme (LIF) brings together the emerging leaders in the global innovation community, providing them with access to high-quality skills training focused on commercialization, a network of peers in Kenya, the UK and around the world, and a rich and varied experience with immediate and long-term benefits for their innovations.
