By Oscar Habeenzu | for Moakanyi Magazine

Out of the sixteen countries in Southern Africa (SADC), the most inventive and innovative women are from Botswana, as was revealed by a report by the UK Intellectual Property Office in September 2019, titled “Gender Profiling in Worldwide Patenting: An Analysis of Female Inventorship”.

Notwithstanding the street value of an African woman’s thigh, this story is about the economic value of the African woman’s brain. She is beautiful, and is also brainy as seen in the dominance of the black woman in the world of inventions. According to the report, based on a study by the UK IP Office, the top ten countries with greater proportion of female inventors are Togo, Uganda, Latvia, Liberia, Rwanda, Cuba, Botswana, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea and Georgia. Botswana female inventors are seventh in the world, and first in Southern Africa.

Let’s talk about Eng. Mmoloki Makoba, Electricity, and Economics awhile.

Within the daily fuss of life and career building by youths, there is a female engineer that chose to take her ambitious further than expected of women, by becoming one of the few in energy generation sector of global economics. She has internationally and national funded innovations in Gasification.

Mmoloki Makoba is a Chemical Engineering PhD Researcher, a Global Expo Investment Battlefield 2019 winner, Botswana Innovation Fund 2019 winner from the Botswana International University of Science and Technology, famous for an innovation of turning Coal into Electricity. If you have ever wondered how the processing of turning Coal into Electricity actually works, Mmoloki, the beneficiary of the Botswana Innovation Fund 2019, shows how she made the discovery.

In her own words, “the technology is a small-scale integrated gasification power plant using Botswana coal in a more economic and environmentally friendly manner. It is therefore a less harmful process than the conventional power generation process. The plant targets to produce electricity for homes and businesses in areas without access to the national grid. Imagine Coal gasification for power generation, whose objective is to characterize Botswana coal with the purpose of syngas production that will be used for power generation”.

There is need for such an innovation because of the environmental factors around coal powered electricity generation. Botswana demand for electricity is 530 MW, 70% is supplied by Eskom in South Africa and the rest by Morupule Power Plant which uses a coal fired power generator to produce only 132 MW from four 33 MW coal fired. Despite the failed plans to build more power stations in the country, the conventional power generation is harmful to the environment. It is necessary to have alternative power generation which is more environmentally friendly and more effective than the current processes.

Botswana has approximately 212 Billion tonnes of coal of which less than a quarter of a billion tonnes is mined annually forming a part of the Karoo supergroup. It is in the region of what is called the Karoo Supergroup which is the most widespread stratigraphic area in Africa south of the Sahara Desert.

These reserves have been found to have high ash, medium calorific value, and low-medium quality bituminous coal. Despite these coal riches, Botswana has only one power plant that generates and supplies electricity to the whole country being able to meet only 30% of the demand in the country. Botswana is developing at a high rate with a lot of infrastructure being erected which calls for more power supply that can be done through the process of coal gasification.

Gasification is the thermochemical conversion of carbonaceous material into valuable synthetic gas. The process takes place in the presence of steam and oxygen. An auger type reactor is a mechanically forced reactor with a screw driven by a motor to control its residence time. This feature allows for agitation which allows for contact with metallic surface and therefore more efficient heat transfer rate.

Botswana’s Coal resources, backed with such innovations as these of Eng. Mmoloki Makoba, there is no doubt that the country will be able to be a literal powerhouse in the Southern African region. The Southern African economic community comprises sixteen countries, namely Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Yes, the evident presence of Shumba Energy cannot be ignored, but there is always room for a good player in any game, and the direction to which Mmoloki’s innovations are going, can only mean a billion-dollar investment, if not done by locals already.

Back to global inventivity, women, and Botswana.

The representation of women within STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) is of great importance to governments and policymakers. Outputs of work undertaken within STEM include inventions for which protection is sought through patent applications.

Consequently, a recurring question that has been asked of the IPO of the UK over the past few years relates to patent statistics about female inventors. However, the gender of inventors is generally not disclosed during the patent application process. This report is an experimental study into the representation of women in worldwide patent inventorship, which is based on inferences made based on bibliographic data that includes the forenames of inventors.

An increasing proportion of patent inventors worldwide are female. Between 1998 and 2017, the proportion of female inventors worldwide has almost doubled from 6.8% to 12.7%. Further, the proportion of patent applications that name a female amongst their inventors rose from 12% to 21% over the same period, and the proportion of applications with at least as many female inventors as males rose from 3% to 8%.

The extent to which women participate in patent inventorship has been analysed. The majority of patents with a female inventor comprise one woman, either working as a lone inventor or as part of a male-dominated team. However, the proportion of patent applications which have several female inventors has more than doubled, from 2% in 1998 to 4.5% in 2017.

There are different trends in female inventorship depending on the technology area. The technology areas that enjoy the greatest levels of female participation are Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals and Organic Chemistry. Women have contributed to the inventions of approximately half of the patent applications made in these fields between 1998-2017.

Back to the engineer genius from Botswana.

Come on now, she is human, and not all work, but as every other person, she has a hobby, and a personal side ambition. Mmoloki is a model, and loves modelling. She has a blog that profiles her and has a portfolio of photos for recruiters and brands to pick up and hire her.

In her own words, she of her modelling life, she says “I have had passion in modelling since my childhood. I am particularly interested in Fashion, Lingerie and Hands work. I am currently free any day since I finished University and willing to travel. I would appreciate paid work but am willing to consider TFP/TFCD depending on the assignment. I am an enthusiastic and hard worker. I am new to the industry with so much passion in posing for pictures, makeup and fashion. I’m happy to work with both professional and semi-professional photographers and stylists, but I’m not interested in nude or topless work. I am open to new ideas and suggestions”.

Source: Wipo, UK IPO, LinkedIn, BIH

https://www.instagram.com/mmolokimakoba/

https://www.facebook.com/YourBIH/videos/1364409467053176/

https://www.wipo.int/ipadvantage/en/details.jsp?id=2623

http://www.themidweeksun.co.bw/11778-botswana-has-only-3-registered-patents/

https://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?aid=83183&dir=2019/october/21