Isaac Nishimwe, a student in level two at Integrated Polytechnic Regional College (IPRC) Musanze, alongside his colleagues have developed a device with a system that detects cooking gas leakage and informs the homeowner through mobile phone SMS notifications. The innovative project idea was awarded a Rwf1 million over the weekend under a project to award innovative ideas and incubate them to become commercialized products. “The system senses cooking leakage and immediately sends SMS notifications to the users’ mobile phones for quick intervention. This will eliminate accidents related to cooking gas, thus will motivate more people to embrace the use of Liquefied Petroleum Gas for cooking,” he said. Besides notifying the user through mobile phone, the system, he explained, will also have an alerting sound installed on gas device at home. “Considering that fire outbreak caused by gas leakage is worsened by electricity in a house, the device will also immediately be able to cut off electricity after detection. The system will also manage to stop gas leakage and thus avoid any fire accident. The device can manage all these in not more than three seconds,” he said. Nishimwe said that they target to export the innovation. “In the next five years, we want to set up our factory that manufactures and exports the products. I think we will be able to achieve the target in partnership with environment institutions such as Rwanda Environmental Management Authority, Rwanda National Police, cooking gas dealers, MTN Rwanda and others,” he said. The innovative idea is in line with Government’s seven-year programme, whereby the number of Rwandans using wood as a source of energy will be reduced to 42 per cent by 2024 from the current 83.3 per cent by embracing cooking gas. Currently only an estimated five per cent of Rwandan urban households use Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) for cooking, an increase of four per cent from 2014 while only 1.1 per cent of the rural households use gas for cooking. Other innovative ideas that were awarded include SMART URWINA (Banana Ripening Machine) that won the first prize worth Rwf2 million by Tumba College ICT student They also include projects for promoting reusable water to avoid environment pollution, textile industry and others. Soraya Hakuziyaremye, the Minister of Trade and Industry said that they will continue to incubate the innovators so that their project ideas can be turned into commercialised products. “We will continue to do our best to incubate the innovators so that their project ideas become viable businesses. If such innovations are not carefully followed up, they end up dying without providing solutions to identified problems,” she said. She said that there is a need for partnership among different institutions such as the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Industrial and research Development Agency, the Ministry for Innovation and Technology to support innovative project ideas with business potential. “We are training them on how they can turn such projects into business and get commercialized. If we are talking about the industrial revolution, it requires technological innovations like these,” she noted. Industrial and services growth is expected to average about 17 per cent every year from 2017 to 2024 according to government seven year programme. She noted that supporting the innovators means promoting Made in Rwanda products. According to Kampeta Sayinzoga, the Director-General of National Industrial and Research Development Agency, the best innovative project ideas were selected among 400 hundred prototypes but noted that the rest will also be guided on how to commercialize their projects in different incubation centres. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
