Promised support has not materialised, young innovators lament

 

The outbreak of Covid-19 has spurred young people across the world to develop health technology innovations.

To create sustainable livelihoods for them and promote the fight against the pandemic, the State had assured young innovators of its support. 

But one year later, innovations focusing on different areas of the Covid-19 response are rotting at the conception or prototype stage due to lack of support to drive them forward.

In Taita Taveta County, two young women invented a bed that they said would prevent and control infections.

The dreams of Rosalia Sanguli, 25, and her partner Jecinta Chao, 23, are fading as their prototype bed gathers dust at their tiny store in Birikani, Voi.

The bed allows caregivers to keep their distance from patients as it is fitted with sensor pads and an alarm that beeps when someone gets too close to the patient.

The sensor is fitted with a microcontroller that signals the alarm once it detects a person near the bed. It also has a prominently placed button to switch the sensor on and off.

The alarm beeps when someone gets close to the bed to alert the person to keep the recommended social distance.

The bed is also ideal for use for critical-care patients and can be manually repositioned using a lever to adjust the height.

After they invented the bed, the artisans were promised support from leaders and the government.

But they have not received any help from either the county or national government to commercialise the bed that had fascinated residents and Kenyans at large, they told Nation.Africa.

The two have now gone back to their day jobs as welders at their workshop, hoping that one day someone will recognise their innovation as they had hoped.

"There were private hospitals that had shown interest but we have not heard from them since last year," said Ms Sanguli.

She said they had hoped that their innovation would open a window of opportunity but they were disappointed that no one came forward to support them.

But Ms Sanguli said that despite the lost opportunity, they are ready to start another innovative project soon.

"We are young and optimistic. We have not given up and we will never do. The one who falls and gets up is stronger than the one who never tried," she says.

Ms Chao said the government and leaders should help young innovators instead of leaving them in the dark.

"Yes we were disappointed because we had very high hopes that someone will hold our hand but that never happened. The government should support young people like us to achieve our dreams because it is easy to lose hope after a failure," she said.

The self-employed duo earned their certificates in mechanical engineering from a local polytechnic in 2014 and opened their workshop in 2019.

Among the challenges they said they are facing is lack of finances to buy materials for their inventions.

"As the government continues to seek solutions that address this pandemic they should put aside a budget to support us. They said they wanted to create jobs but we are not seeing any support for young people at the village level," Ms Chao said.   BY DAILY NATION