#OutToLunch Who is your mentor? By Denis Jjuuko It is usually a lonely treacherous journey for innovators especially those working in an industry that may not be established in a particular country. The lack of belief in an idea — the self-doubt that usually creeps in, wondering whether an idea would work. In Africa, the idea of venture capital is still new even though many people are investing in startups especially in the fintech sector. On a Saturday afternoon about a week ago, I was invited to listen to some innovators. All of them were from the informal sector with some of them having not even attended a single formal class in anything. What they lacked in formal education, they had it in ambition. I admired their courage given the grandeur of some ideas they are working on especially that they didn’t have financial resources or technical expertise to write home about. Uganda is actually full of these innovators. In Katwe and Kisenyi around Kampala, you will find lots of young people making all sorts of things — from wet welding machines, block making machines, popcorn machines, to automotive parts such as taxi seats, exhaust pipes and such other things. Many work in silos instead of working together. Many consider themselves the best and close the door to learning to improve their skills. Yet putting a product on market requires significant investments in research and development, developing the prototype, establishing the business case and then making the product itself. Many of our innovators in Katwe or Kisenyi don’t have resources for those stages. Many also don’t know whether those stages are necessary which many times leads to products that aren’t worth the printing cost of their price tag. A friend who is in the real estate sector wanted to expand his business. He thought he would be saving money by making the concrete blocks on site as he developed his properties. After reading a glossy ad in the classified section of a newspaper, he went to Katwe and bought a machine. It couldn’t make the blocks. The maker of the product didn’t want to hear of anything, for him the interest was only to make a sale. My friend is planning to sell it as scrap metal. I don’t think the innovator will stay in business for long, if other customers end up with similar experiences. In many countries that have been able to develop over the last few decades, their innovators have done so by partnering with others. In India, Maruti partnered with Japan’s Suzuki to develop the automotive industry. The Chinese have been doing the same, working with global brands to build their automotive industry. Now Chinese brands are increasingly dominating the market at least in China. Nike started by making its famous shoes in Japan and partnering with the Japanese as they built their capacity. For many years, they concentrated on shoes and only expanded into clothing and other areas later. So, the innovators need to ask themselves, what can they make on a product and then outsource the rest. To make a block making machine in Katwe, one doesn’t need to make everything. They can outsource some of the parts from others to make the final product. The automotive industry has mastered this. On average a car has 30,000 parts which are made by hundreds of companies stationed all over the world. So the guys in Katwe or Abayita Ababiri who are trying to make cars or those in Mbarara who want to make helicopters don’t necessarily need to make everything. They can buy parts from anywhere or most importantly make parts for others. They don’t have to do everything. These innovators also need business mentorship so they could holistically develop. If one can’t read or write like some of them in that innovators’ meeting, how will they sustainably develop their enterprises? In his autobiography, the late Bulayimu Muwanga Kibirige (BMK) talked about how he had to learn English when he realized that he needed to work with businesses and partners outside Uganda. He had to learn to read and communicate in English. The Science, Technology and Innovation secretariat which organized the meeting that I attended have started mentorship programs for these informal innovators and partnering them with others in the industry albeit with a bit of difficulty in getting such young people in the informal sector to appreciate systems. Skilling them and reorienting them is the right thing to do but this is needed across board. So if you are a young person, who is mentoring you? Anyway, have a great new year, won’t you? The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com internet

#OutToLunch Beg the Americans for Ebola vaccine formula so Matugga factory can make them By Denis Jjuuko In 2019, as Kasese was recovering from an Ebola outbreak that had put the region to a standstill, I visited a few health centres and even families who had lost relatives to the disease. The effects of Ebola on the families and communities were still evident. There is no need to emphasize how dangerous this disease is. I noticed that what had really worked in Kasese is how the community reacted to washing their hands. As we drove through the hilly terrain, washing stations were in place almost everywhere. Select health centres had received solar powered chlorine generators capable of producing at least 30 litres of chlorine at a concentration of 0.5 percent every six hours which when diluted to 0.6 percent would make 270 litres. Chlorine concentrated at a certain level is effective in fighting Ebola. It is also cheap to make compared to JIK and such other detergents. The generators had been donated by UNICEF and its partners. If one had an event, they would alert the health centre in time and have chlorine reserved for them. Nobody attended an event without washing their hands and having their temperatures taken. Kasese is located in the mountainous Rwenzori region with a porous border through which people slip through into Uganda from the Democratic Republic of Congo. This was before lockdowns became an epidemiological standard measure to control the spread of diseases. Yet Ebola was contained to a few cases. Everyone was vigilant. People ensured their hands were washed; their body temperatures taken. A year later in 2020, COVID-19 struck. We claimed that as a country we had Ebola experience and therefore we would do well to control the disease. We locked down schools for the longest period in the world according to some accounts. Washing hands and sanitizers were put in place and temperatures were taken. However, we seem to have learnt nothing from Ebola outbreaks in Kasese and even COVID-19. In Kampala since the outbreak of COVID-19, standard operating procedures have been relegated to the back corner. There is no enforced washing of hands while entering public spaces. No body temperatures are being taken. What happened to all the temp guns that had been acquired? What lessons do we learn from the Ebola outbreaks that we have had to deal with? What lessons did we learn from COVID-19? Today, many sanitizer dispensers in public places are either dry or non-functional. Wash stations have been sent to the store or sold as scrap metal. Everyone is on their own. Yet Ebola is spreading to other towns with cases being reported in as far places as Jinja from the Mubende/Kassanda epicenters. The lockdown of these two districts have proved to be ineffective since the diseases continues to spread. The Ministry of Education says schools should close early before the term was scheduled to. This comes at the time when most of these children sat at home for nearly two years. Statistics from some civil society claim that many teenage girls ended up pregnant and their lives have changed forever. The majority of these are looking at a bleak future. I may be wrong but I don’t remember schools being closed in Kasese before due to Ebola. What we learnt in previous outbreaks should be informing the decisions we make today in fighting the disease and that can’t be just lockdowns. Effective use of chlorine among other measures saved Kasese before. It can save the country again. But as the continent we should also work hard to find long term solutions. Ebola has been around for more than 50 years. Uganda is in the zone where frequent outbreaks occur but the vaccines which have been licensed by the World Health Organization are not anywhere near those who need them. We had to wait for the benevolence of the United States for a few dozes for health workers. We need to continuously work on building our capacity to develop and manufacture the vaccines. COVID-19 taught us of “vaccine racism” and therefore we can’t be relying on the west all the time. The vaccine factory in Matugga that was launched recently is a good start but the real work is in developing the vaccine and then scaling up its production. For Ebola, as it spreads across the country at levels we haven’t seen before, it is high time we begged the Americans for the formula so that the Matugga factory can produce them. But before that, let us ensure everyone washes their hands! The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com