There is limited innovation in Kenya

Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Linux and many other successful ICT related innovations and companies were conceived by youngsters during their University years.

Why is it that Kenya is not experiencing similar innovative success stories from their universities?

Could it be that the local IT/Computer Science curriculum is not up to the expectations?

Or is that the caliber of both the students and their lecturers in our universities is suspect and may need to be investigated?

Of course many may wish to disagree and claim that Kenya is one of the most innovative countries in the world particularly because of one major innovation by the name Mpesa.

However, contrary to popular belief Mpesa is NOT a Kenyan innovation as it is patented under Vodafone(UK) - meaning it is a British innovation.

In any case, even if Mpesa was a Kenyan innovation, we would still be scoring badly in terms of the number of globally recognized innovations produced per year - given that since Mpesa was created 10year ago, we are yet hear of another innovation of similar magnitude of success.

We must develop our capacity to innovate to the same maturity level as our capacity to produce the next international athlete.

We know for sure that Kenya can and will consistently produce the next "David Rudisha" over the next ten years - and so it must be the same of our ICT innovations.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in its global innovation ranking seems to agree and has placed Kenya at an average number. 89 out of the 141 countries surveyed in 2012.

This is behind a few selected African countries like Morocco at 88, Tunisia at 64 and Botswana at 54. The leading innovative countries listed are Singapore, Hong Kong and Sweden ranked at numbers 1, 2 and 3 respectively.

So what makes some countries like Singapore or Sweden to be more innovative than others? The top three ingredients for innovation as measured by WIPO include Institutional framework, Human capital & Research, and ICT and related Infrastructure such as quality of Power supply .

An institutional framework would provide a National Innovation System that deliberately defines and encourages the triple-helix or three-way relationship between government, industry and universities.

It is only early this year that Kenya finally got the institutional framework right by passing the Science, Technology and Innovation Act 2013.

This act envisions spending 2% of the national budget towards research and development and it remains to be seen if this will come to pass.

Research that results in innovations with far reaching global and social impacts has always enjoyed government sponsored funding disbursed through universities or research institutions.

Private sector or industries have also funded university research by commissioning studies intended to solving business related concerns.

This triple-helix relationship is deliberately created by coupling together Universities and Industries in innovative clusters with mechanisms to enhance their synergistic relationships through Government sponsored research activities.

These innovative clustering is evident around leading innovative institutions such Stanford, UCLA and MIT in the United states.

So back to the original question, are our university curricula, staff and students up to to the task with the challenges of innovation?

The Commission of University Education is best placed to answer this, but the main point is that without enhancing linkages between Universities, Industry and Government, innovation in Kenya will remain a very low level activity for years to come.