Youth and innovation

Never let anyone tell you you’re too young to do anything. This fabulous 18 year old tinkerer from Mombasa invented a system that enables mobile phone owners to remotely lock and track their car when it’s being hijacked.

“The system, that Mbetsa created by combining technology from projects that he has completed in the past. The real-time system uses a combination of voice, DTMF and SMS text messages over cell-based phone service to carry codes and messages that allow control of some of a vehicles’ electrical systems including the ignition to manage vehicle activation and disabling remotely in real time.

Another feature of the system is the capacity to poll the vehicle owner by mobile phone for permission to start when the ignition is turned in real time as well as eavesdrop on conversation in the vehicle.”

What I really like here is that he has no formal training and that has probably been an advantage to him and his idea. Creativity comes in various shapes and sizes and his ability to learn from hands on experience probably wouldn’t have brought him to the same result if he’d gone to engineering school, a form of innovation businesses and academia will have to deal with and recognise.

Check out the video taken from the TV report. If anything, I hope he gets the financial backing he needs to push this product onto the market.

Add comment July 19th, 2008