Innovator says with support he advance homegrown solutions

Mr Alex Kithinji is not your ordinary farmer. Since the early 1980s, he has been known for his innovations and groundbreaking research that are always ahead of the village technological clock.

At his house in Kithangari, South Imenti, only a call from his smartphone and a makeshift device made of a DVD player and four mobile phones lights up two bulbs.

‘I call it the Great Brain Technology because I developed it out of inborn talent,” says the self-taught electronics technician.

Mr Kithinji, 54, has shouted “eureka” several times after successfully producing electricity using piped water, transmitting FM radio signals and developing a smart home lighting and security control system.

His dalliance with innovation dates back to 1982 when, as a Form Two student, he made a weed killer (herbicide) earning himself the name Roundup from schoolmates and villagers.

“While in secondary school, I developed keen interest in physics and electronics. I dismantled my mother’s priced Phillips radio out of curiosity,” Mr Kithinji, who has never set foot in college, explains.

“After completing secondary in 1985, I would read about inventors and any book about electronics. I became a self-taught electronics technician.”

Following an acute shortage of kerosene (that locals relied on for lighting) due to the 1990 Gulf crisis, Mr Kithinji did groundbreaking research that saw him light up more than 50 rural homes.

Using a bicycle dynamo and a turbine turned by a piped water jet, Mr Kithinji was able to produce electricity that powered several homes.

“Around 1992, there was a shortage of oil in the world and in our village, we could not get kerosene to light our lamps. I started looking into ways of using a bicycle dynamo to light my house. After studying a neighbour’s bicycle, I started experimenting how to make the dynamo work away from the bicycle,” he recounts.

He adds, “After days of research, I came up with a turbine that could turn the dynamo using a water jet. I borrowed Sh250 from a friend and walked 12 kilometres to Nkubu market to buy an old dynamo.”

Mr Kithinji says he converted the dynamo current to be able to charge a car battery that could then light up four bulbs and a TV set. He then learned electrical wiring from a friend who had studied the course.

“I used to charge Sh5,000 to install the lighting system,” he says.

He would later upgrade his power system using a motorbike magneto ignition system, to produce higher voltage.

“However, I could not install the magneto in many homes because of challenges with water pressure. We could not get a strong water jet to power the magneto,” Mr Kithinji says.

The coming of mobile phones inspired Mr Kithinji’s innovative mind and he started wondering how he could use a phone to do manual work.

“When I started thinking about using a mobile phone to do manual work, I did not own one. Mobile phones were owned by the rich,” says the village innovator.

He says he would borrow faulty and abandoned phones from friends which he used to do experiments for his imaginary device.

October 4, 2012 is still etched on Mr Kithinji’s memory as it is the day he had a breakthrough with his remote lighting control device he calls ‘the great brain technology’.

The smart device allows one to remotely control the lighting system and electronics away from home as it uses the mobile network.

“I remember vividly that I shouted eureka at 11pm on October 4, 2012. I asked my father-in-law who was in Nairobi to call the number I had linked to the device and my wife was shocked to see the bulb light up. He called another number on the system and the light switched off,” Mr Kithinji reminisces.

Since then, he says he has upgraded the device to give feedback after switching on or off as well as integrated an interactive voice.

Mr Kithinji insists that he did not read about the innovation anywhere as he did not have access to the internet or books on advanced information technology.

He says the device can be adapted for use in car tracking, home security as well as automated irrigation systems.

However, Mr Kithinji says he is giving up for lack of support, adding that various attempts to have his works benefit the community did not bear fruits.

He said the government should learn from the coronavirus pandemic to support local researchers and innovators to advance homegrown solutions.

“Research is an expensive venture because during my experiments in 2012, I dismantled mobile phones worth more than Sh300,000. I have spent more than Sh500,000 in developing the smart lighting control device. I am now concentrating on farming because I could not commercialise my innovations,” he laments.