Nigerian born
Inventors, their Inventions, Challenges and Opportunities II
Few of the Nigerian born inventors and
their inventions were presented in last
week article. Others inventors whose names ring bell are Shehu Saleh Balami, Ume Ifeanyi
Charles and Prof Bartholomew Nnaji.
Shehu Sale Balami is a Nigerian Engineer who
has been involved in designing of rockets. He is a graduate of Mechanical
Engineering from the Federal University of Technology (FUT), Minna, Niger State. He invented two solid-fuel rockets
which were launched in Kaduna. In 2008, he built his first rocket which was
modified in 2011. The solid-fuel rocket was produced under the auspices of the
Movement for the Propagation of Science and Technology in Nigeria. He produced the two rockets with 100 per cent locally sourced
materials at an approximate cost of 30,000 Naira each. With this development,
many Nigerians believe that Nigeria can build its own satellites, as well as
the space ships that will propel them into space.
Ume
Ifeanyi Charles is another inventor of refute. Charles is a Nigerian, American based credited with
five famous inventions. There are:
ü Method
and Apparatus for Measuring Thermally Induced Warpage in Printed Wiring Boards
Using Shadow Moir, which was patented in
USA with United States Patent No. 5601364, Feb. 11,1997;
ü Method
and Apparatus for Measuring Thermal Warpage Using Projection Moir, patented in USA with United States Patent No.
6564166 B1, May 13, 2003;
ü Object
Inspection Method and System, equally patented
in USA with United States Patent No. 6747268, June 8, 2004;
ü Inspection
System and Methods, United States Patent No. 7492449,February 17, 2009;
ü Ultrasound
Systems and Method for Measuring Weld Penetration Depth in Real Time and Off
Line, United States Patent No. 7762136, July 27, 2010.
Thus,
all the five inventions were patented at
the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Charles is a professor
at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia. He is a recipient of the
Donald P. Eckman Education Award in recognition of his contributions towards
education of mechatronics throughout the world. In 2010, he was also awarded
the Electronics and Photonic Packaging Division (EPPD) Excellence in Mechanics
Award.
Prof Bartholomew Nnaji was one of the
Presidential aspirants from Enugu state. He was a onetime Minister of Power of
the Federal republic of Nigeria. He holds a Doctorate degree in Industrial and
Systems Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in
the United States. As a hardworking and dedicated researcher, he focused on;
Computer Aided Design, Robotics and Computer Aided Engineering. Using the
knowledge he gained from his research pursuits, he created the term Geometric
reasoning, the concept that most things that are operated has a geometric
configuration. He is also credited as one of the innovators of the E-design
concept. He is also the founder of the first indigenous owned power generating
company in Nigeria and was also a onetime minister for Science and Technology
in Nigeria.
Few other inventors whose works are
internationally acknowledged can still be mentioned. In this category, we have Cyprian
Emeka Uzoh. He holds more than 126 United States issued patents and over 160
patents worldwide in semiconductor technology, including U.S. Patent No.
6709562, “method of making electroplated interconnection structures on
integrated circuit chips”. This spectacular feat earned him the inventor of the
year award in 2006 from the New York Intellectual Property Association. Yet
another Nigerian born inventor is Brino Gilbert. He is acknowledged to be the
inventor of the "Counter Collision Gadget (CCG)". CCG is device with
the capacity to prevent accidents on the road, air, sea and rail. The invention
earned him many awards including a bronze medal in the Aerospace/Aeronautics
category at the May 2003 edition of the Invention and New Product Exposition
(INPEX) in the United States. He also received a silver medal in the
manufacturing category and a trophy for being the best invention from Africa in
the continental category. His vision is to make CCG exportable to many
countries of the world.
An earlier article in this Column under
the title "Educational
Feats of Nigerians in Diaspora: Food for Thoughts", many Nigerians who were
reported to excel in the academia abroad fall in this category of Nigerian born
inventors. Among them was Prof. Philip Emeagwali, an international inventor and
scientist. He lives in the United States for many years. In 1989, Emeagwali won the prestigious Gordon Bell
Prize ($10,000) for price-performance in high-performance computing
applications, in an oil reservoir modelling calculation using a novel
mathematical formulation and implementation. The Gordon Bell Prize is an award
presented by the Association for Computing Machinery each year in conjunction
with the Supercomputing Conference (SC) Conference series. The prize recognizes
outstanding achievement in high-performance computing applications. The
application used computational fluid dynamics for oil-reservoir modelling.
Another inventor whose extraordinary success was reported in the article was Jelani
Aliyu, a Nigerian from Sokoto state living in USA. He is the celebrated car
designer of General Motors. General Motors is refuted to be the world’s largest
automobile maker. Jelani Aliyu is the
designer of the Chevy Volt, a car recognized to be an American Revolution and considered
to be one of the apt concepts in the design line. Globally, Jelani's work was
considered to be a masterpiece in the car industry because it was the best
selection made out of many entries from renowned automobile designers across
the continents. In the end, Jelani's design was chosen as the best design"
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqx-xKGeDCA). The car, Chevy Volt designed by
Jelani was powerful, efficient, aggressive and unique compared to other cars in
same class. Jelani, himself made a confession that he was inspired by
"nature, ....a slick aggression of a cheetah" - powerful, smooth and
aggressive move, direct to the target, "a practical solution to
technological balance of beauty, efficiency and excitement at the same
time".
In recent time (2016), BBC
reported the invention of a Nigerian "tractor", designed and built in
Nigeria by one Engineer, Timothy Addigi Terfa. Engr Terfa called his tractor
"Ijodo", which means labour in his Tiv native language. He explained
his motivation to manufacture the tractor. He wanted to increase agricultural
productivity in Nigeria by reducing the drudgery, make farming a lot easier
with machine and creating massive employment.
In a similar effort, National Centre
for Agricultural Mechanization (NCAM), Ilorin developed a "trike-tor".
The trike-tor is a 3 wheeled and 30
horse power mini-tractor that was developed from the concept of a motorcycle.
It was designed to carry out similar duties as that of a conventional tractor
but at smaller scale.
To conclude on the inventors and their inventions; I have to mention
the recent News report from THISDAY on the "Amphibian jet car"
invented by a young talented Kehinde
Obasanjo who was spotted in a busy Ahmadu Bello Way, Ikeja, Lagos touching,
test-running, admiring and guiding jealously his brainchild, a prototype
multi-purpose amphibian jet car. His aim is to be the first Nigerian manufacturer of amphibian jet to carry out multi-purpose
functions and this he has set in motion. Obasanjo told THISDAY “This is called
‘amphibian jet car’. I built it here in Nigeria. It is designed to move on
land, on sea and to fly in the air. Out of the three operations it is supposed
to carry out, I’ve achieved two; this one you are seeing here moves on land and
on sea. It moves on the sea with a flying engine. I’m yet to complete it so
that it can be carrying out all the three operations,” Finally, Ibrahim Adekunle, a "semi-illiterate" inventor as he never went to Secondary School, not to
mention higher institution of learning like university. he invented “Limousine Tricycle” was one of the
five selected inventions on the BBC’s coverage of the Maker Faire Africa, an exhibition for inventors which took place
in Lagos. As reported in THISDAY, Limousine Tricycle was built after cutting a
normal tricycle into two and adding more seats and parts in between the
cuttings.
There
are many other small scale inventions scattered across the nation. All the
inventions are targeted at developing the Nigerian economy, increase
productivity and elevate Nigeria to a greater height. Despite these concerted
efforts of first class minds among our compatriots, Nigeria seems to be moving
at a snail speed towards technological revolution. What are the challenges? They
are insufficient recognition, lack of support from government, other
stakeholders, lack of synergy, and many others. Nigeria must invest heavily in
science and technology. All the science technology agencies created to explore
and exploit the national potential for technological revolution must be
empowered to discharge their responsibilities. Nigeria cannot afford to lag
behind with its pool of inventors, scientists and first class craft men and
women. (Concluded)
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