How lack of funding kills local innovations

Many great ideas are going to waste for lack of funding. FILE PHOTO | NMG 

By BITANGE NDEMO

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Many great ideas are going to waste for lack of funding. Yet in 2013, Parliament passed the Science, Technology and Innovation Act (STIA), which created the National Innovation Agency (NIA), National Research Fund (NFR) and the National Commission for Science, Technology, and Innovation.

These agencies have a role to play in research and innovation. The agency that is relevant to my topic today is the NIA.

Its role as stated in its website includes resource mobilisation, partnership and linkages; innovation development and management; and, idea funding.

My interest is due to the fact that I encounter many young people with fundable ideas but who have no clue that their own country has mechanisms to fund good ideas or help them protect their intellectual property.

Some of these youth find it easier to get funding from other sources than from the agency responsible to fund ideas.

On commercialisation of ideas, the agency offers the following services: ensuring that potential innovations receive adequate development and marketing resources for success, identifying and formulating strategies for market formation of local innovation products, increasing awareness of intellectual property rights among innovators, acquiring rights or interests in or to any technological innovation supported by the agency from any person or assign any person any rights in or to such technological innovation, develop the national capacity and infrastructure to protect and exploit intellectual property derived from research or financed by the agency and facilitate institution of legal action for infringement of any intellectual property rights.

Every one of these functions is a major problem to young innovators as they spend a great deal of time getting help from all other sources except NIA.

It is possible that NIA may not have a budget to market itself to the people they ought to serve even though some of the answers to most problems may not always be funds.

Further, there could be a structural problem between those who need such services and those who are supposed to supply them.

NIA should borrow a leaf on how to meet the needs of those in need from those countries that have successful programmes.

For example, in Denmark, they seek anyone with a strong idea and desire for new knowledge, anyone ready for a collaboration that addresses a societal challenge and stimulates economic growth, or anyone with an entrepreneurial mind-set they can help grow.

In essence, they look for fundable ideas to nurture. In contrast, we may be waiting for those with good ideas to approach the offices of NIA. The latter philosophy never works since highly creative people despise seeking help even when they need it.

The Global Innovation Fund (GIF), which has in the past supported many Kenyan start-ups, has developed a unique hybrid investment fund that supports the piloting, rigorous testing, and scaling of innovations targeted at improving the lives of the poorest people in developing countries.

This fund supports a portfolio of innovations that collectively open up opportunities and improve the lives of millions across the developing world.

READ: CMA plans fintech hub to drive financial innovation

Closer home, South Africa’s Technology Innovation Agency scouts for new ideas through different channels such as open innovation initiatives, catalyses partnerships between small enterprises, industries, universities and science councils to develop an enabled environment supporting sector-specific innovations for global competitiveness, provide risk funding and support for innovators to progress ideas towards market entry and commercialisation, attract and facilitate late-stage funding (companies, industries, venture capital firms, and development finance institutions) for the commercialisation of market ready technologies.

Other interventions include reduction of barriers of access to expensive high-end skills and equipment for innovators by repositioning Technology Stations and Platforms.

TIA’s specific role in this regard is to fund and support host institutions to provide relevant service offerings, and continually gather valuable intellectual capital on best practice in technology innovation.

This has strengthened the capability of the agency to inform and provide advice on policy issues, frameworks and mechanisms relating to the advancement of technology innovation. Let’s change our innovation funding philosophy.