10
UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 5TH APRIL, 2015
OUR CAMPUS
Innovation, innovation, innovation.
It’s the rain dance chant
in breakfast meetings, business seminars
and policy sessions. It’s the mystic ingredient peppered through
every white paper and strategic plan. Innovation, according
to many, is a prime solution to some of our region’s chronic
economic problems – whether it be Trinidad and Tobago’s in oil
and gas dependency or the wider Caribbean’s inability to adapt to
competitive pressure.
But innovation has so far been as elusive as it is enticing.
In the most recent
Global Competitiveness Report
of the World
Economic Forum, Trinidad ranks in the bottom third (100 out of
144 countries) in innovation. “Insufficient capacity to innovate”
is the country’s sixth most problematic factor to doing business.
The nation has taken steps to spark innovation, two of the
most visible of these being the Council for Competitiveness and
Innovation’s “Ideas 2 Innovation” competition and the recent
(October 2014) partnership with the European Union through
which Trinidad and Tobago will receive a 9.7 million euro grant
to boost innovation.
Yet despite this thirst for innovation and the willingness to
mobilise considerable resources towards fostering it, there is an
obvious resource for ideas and inventions that remains largely
untapped – The University of the West Indies.
Ideas to food processing
Imagine a machine that vacuum extracts the water from
coconuts, tripling its shelf life. How about a piece of equipment
that reduces the tedious preparation time of bread nut (chataigne)
from over an hour to ten minutes. What could a whole suite of
machinery that reduces the need for labour, accelerates processes
and lowers costs do for the regional agro-processing industry?
For five years now students from the Department of
Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering within the Faculty
of Engineering have been developing models for an array of
food preparation and processing purposes. How viable are these
inventions?
“About 60-70% of these models could be implemented,” says
Rodney Harnarine, a development engineer in the department
and supervisor for numerous student projects.
This is the kind of potential that planners and policymakers
have been looking for, a ready-made innovation incubator. But to
turn that potential into opportunity many things need to happen
– and they haven’t been happening. Without support a potential
innovation garden can become a graveyard for good ideas.
Resurgence of agriculture
To understand how timely a concept agro-processing
innovation is, you have to understand how topical food production
and security has become for the region.
On May 2 of this year, Food and Agriculture Organisation
(FAO) Director-General José Graziano da Silva told a the gathering
of CARICOM heads in the Bahamas that agriculture was crucial
for the region to achieve food security and could spur economic
growth.
“Agriculture has really taken on a new life,” says Dr Wayne
Ganpat, lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Economics
and Extension within the Faculty of Food and Agriculture. “(The
Caribbean) is searching for the right mix of commodities to rebuild
agriculture’s contribution to GDP.”
Agro-processing is seen as an important way of adding value
to agricultural commodities – extending the shelf life or perishable
items, creating employment and bringing in new revenues. And
innovation can enhance every aspect of the food production sector
– pre-primary production, production, processing and even spin-
off industries like agro-tourism.
“We want bright young people, innovators and entrepreneurs
moving forward. The agriculture we want is one that is smart,”
says Dr Ganpat.
And within the campus itself there are many bright young
people bringing their creative abilities to the requirements of
the agro-processing industry. Turns out the solution to spurring
innovation is as simple as the old saying – “necessity is the mother
of invention.”
Students within theMechanical Engineering Department are
required to complete a design and build project for their degree
programme. Agro-processing and food production is one of six
areas they can choose for their project. That means every year
between 80-100 students are creating systems or equipment and
some of them are working in agro-processing.
“Typically I would have 10 projects a year,” saysMr Harnarine,
who supervises many of the agro-processing projects and is amajor
advocate for pushing the innovation being produced beyond the
boundaries of the classroom for the benefit of the students, The
UWI and the food production industry.
Innovation factory
What kinds of projects have been developed? Besides the
vacuum extractor and bread nut shredder, innovations include
a papaya pulper; a soursop seed separator; a green mango slicer;
devices that wash, peel, grate and dry cassava for the production
of cassava flour; a cocoa pod splitter and many more.
“Very often what the students build is not a prototype, but
a scaled-down model using substitute materials, Mr Harnarine
explains. “None the less these are the basis for new ideas and new
equipment.”
Materials are one of many challenges the students face,
challenges that are weighing down what could be the genesis of a
new relationship between the university and the market.
“The students are under pressure doing five other courses
besides their project,” Mr Harnarine says. “Somewhere between
their courses and the weekend they find time to build equipment.
Money is also a problem. You have 100 students trying to raise
$5,000 to buy bits and pieces to put together.”
Add to that the department’s limitedmanpower and resources,
and it’s clear that the students are producing extraordinary work
in less than optimal conditions. But the most difficult part of this
scenario is what happens after the projects are completed:
“We do not have storage space for 100 projects every year. So
every year, if there is no interest in a project we will scrap it and
recycle the motor and other usable parts.”
Innovation is a culture
When looking at the lack of business innovation in the
Caribbean it is important to understand that there are several
structural impediments within our societies. The inertial forces
are at present much stronger than the forces for movement,
development and change. And although there is a greater urgency
for innovation being expressed at very high levels, themachinery to
make it so is often sluggish and highly inaccurate in its movement.
As one of the most important regional institutions, boasting
a repository of some of its brightest minds and operating under
a mandate to make the Caribbean a better place, The UWI is
in a position to make a tremendous impact on the fostering of
an innovative culture. The work of students in agro-processing
innovation is an area in which The UWI can have that kind of
impact.
What are some of the changes that need to take place for the
evolution of what could become a campus innovation unit?
External partnerships/funding
– Resources such materials,
manpower and space require funding. Universities that produce
innovative technologies work closely with their governments
and the private sector. Increased funding opens up all kinds of
opportunities.
Stronger linkages withmanufacturing training institutions
– Training institutions like Metal Industries Company (MIC)
in Trinidad have the necessary machinery and materials to
manufacture full prototypes of student projects.
Stronger intellectual property protections
–It is very costly
to protect the intellectual property rights of new technologies but
also necessary to guard against theft and duplication.
Project exhibitions
– To generate interest in innovative
projects, potential users have to know they exist. Projects featured
in exhibitions in the past have been given a positive reception by
potential buyers in the food and manufacturing industries.
Field laboratories
–The UWI can show the value of its agro-
processing innovation projects as well as contribute to the welfare
of rural agricultural communities by setting up small preparation
and processing field units.
A
Secret
Garden
of
Ideas
B y J o e l H e n r y
A papaya
pulper
A machine
that washes
lettuce
A bread nut
(chataigne)
shredder
