Top 10 inventions by Nigerians
Many people across the world simply define the term invention as “to create”. Persons of this school of thought are not economical with the truth. An invention is the creation of new products, processes and technologies hitherto unknown to exist. It is a systematic and well-thought process which is greatly influenced by a combination of events which interplays in an environment, as well as how the business enterprise reacts to the interaction of the elements in the environment.
An invention is the transformation of creative ideas into useful applications by combing resources in new or unusual ways to provide value to society. Inventions ensure that people can adapt to changes or utilise new tools or mechanisms through the creation of better products or services, creating a positive impact on their environment. It is the catalyst for the growth and success of any society.
With the rapid advancement in globalisation and technology in today’s world, inventors are needed more than ever. Many countries recognise the importance of research and development (R&D) and the subsequent invented goods or services. Many Nigerians, whether resident in the country or the diaspora, have and continue to invent products and items of great significance to the world.
This piece, therefore, presents a selected top 10 inventions made by Nigerians.
Table of Content hide 1Programme for world’s fastest computer | Philip Emeagwali 2Emergency Blood Transfusion System | Otu Oviemo Ovadje 3First solid fuel rocket | Shehu Saleh Balami 4Various electrical devices | Ume Ifeanyi Charles 5Pot-in-pot refrigerator | Mohamed Bah Abbah 6CancerVision Goggle | Samuel Achilefu 7Development of microchips for surgical robots | Ndubuisi Ekekwe 8INYE Tablet | Saheed Adepoju 9‘Hospital in a box’ | Seyi Oyesola 10Multiprocessor chips to allow thread-level speculation (TLS) | Kunle OlotokunProgramme for world’s fastest computer | Philip Emeagwali
Philip Emeagwali is a Nigerian-born computer scientist who is recognised globally. He travelled in a scholarship to the United States of America, where he has been to make groundbreaking inventions.
Emeagwali’s greatest achievement to date is the development of the Connection Machine (CM). The Connection Machine uses computational fluid dynamics for oil-reservoir modelling. It utilises 65,000 computer processors linked in parallel to form what is deemed the fastest computer on Earth. This computer can perform 3.1 billion calculations per second, which is faster than the theoretical top speed of the Cray Supercomputer.
Although he did not invent the CM, Emeagwali’s application was the first programme to apply a pseudo-time approach to reservoir modelling. He subsequently won the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize for price performance in high-performance computing applications: the CM-2 massively-parallel computer.
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Emergency Blood Transfusion System | Otu Oviemo Ovadje
Otu Oviemo Ovadje is a medical doctor who served in the Nigerian Army and rose to the rank of Brigadier-General.
Dr Ovadje, who worked as a Chief Consultant Anesthesiologist and an Intensive care Physician in the medical field, invented the Emergency Auto Transfusion Device, better known as the Eatset. The Eatset is a low-cost technological device used to recover blood from a patient’s internal bleeding organs and then reinfuse the blood back into the patient’s blood system. This novel solution works without electricity and forestalls blood loss, especially among pregnant women.
The Delta State-born medical doctor-cum-soldier was inspired to develop the device after he noticed that many women, especially those in developing countries, die from internal haemorrhage (bleeding) during pregnancy, especially those affected by a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. The device saved the intraperitoneal blood of 12 patients as presented at the World Congress of the International Committee of Military Medicine (ICMM) in Augsburg, Germany, in June 1994. It became accepted as a globally renowned medical invention as it was published in the journal of the ICMM in 1995.
Dr Ovadje won the World Intellectual Property Organisation and Organisation of African Unity Gold Medal in 1995 for his scientific work. The device, which has undergone some modification, is still being used in developing countries to date.
First solid fuel rocket | Shehu Saleh Balami
Shehu Saleh Balami invented a solid-fuel rocket in 2008. The graduate of Mechanical Engineering from the Federal University of Technology Minna, Niger State, thought of the idea of creating a rocket which could run on solid fuel and created it.
Balami produced two solid fuel rockets and launched his invention at the new Kaduna Millennium City Road in Kaduna State. The rockets were subsequently modified in 2011. His invention is the first of its kind globally.
Various electrical devices | Ume Ifeanyi Charles
Until his demise, Ume Ifeanyi Charles was a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the Director of the Advanced Electronic Packaging and Laser Processing Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was an active researcher and instructor in both the areas of manufacturing and mechatronics.
He invented five devices, all of which were patented by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). They are:
- Method and Apparatus for Measuring Thermally Induced Warpage in Printed Wiring Boards Using Shadow Moir, United States Patent No. 5601364, Feb. 11, 1997
- Method and Apparatus for Measuring Thermal Warpage Using Projection Moir, United States Patent No. 6564166 B1, May 13, 2003
- Object Inspection Method and System, United States Patent No. 6747268, June 8, 2004;
- Inspection System and Methods, United States Patent No. 7492449, February 17, 2009; and
- Ultrasound Systems and Method for Measuring Weld Penetration Depth in Real Time and Off Line, United States Patent No. 7762136, July 27, 2010
These inventions by the late Ume improved the reliability of microelectronic packages.
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Pot-in-pot refrigerator | Mohamed Bah Abbah
The late Mohammed Bah Abbah was the mastermind behind the pot-in-refrigerator. The late Abbah stirred this invention after he observed that people in rural areas had challenges storing their cooked meals due to the lack of electricity.
He developed the device by combining the knowledge he had gained from his grandmother’s craft of traditional pottery with simple laws of physics. A small clay pot is placed inside a larger one, and the space between the two is filled with moist sand.
The inner pot is filled with whatever is desired to be cooled (fruit, vegetables, drinks) and covered with a wet cloth. The refrigerator does not use electricity. Instead, the evaporating water draws heat from the inside through the porous outer pot, cooling the interior by up to 14°C. This invention also became an entrepreneurial masterstroke as Abbah employed skilled indigenous pot makers to mass-produce the first batch of 5,000 Pot-in-Pots. He was presented with the Rolex Award for Enterprise in 2001 and $75,000 for the invention.
CancerVision Goggle | Samuel Achilefu
Samuel Achilefu is a leading scientist and medical researcher who is renowned for his contributions and developments in fundamental and applied research in science, engineering, and medicine.
Achilefu formulated and led the development of wearable cancer-viewing goggles. This goggle helps to spot and aid in the accurate removal of cancer cells during surgery. Designed with the principle of optical imaging, the goggle ensures real-time visualization of intrinsic and exogenous contrast within biological tissues. It enables surgeons to distinguish malignant cells from healthy cells so that they leave no stray tumour cells behind during surgery.
In addition, Achilefu is also renowned for leading the development and use of light-sensitive drugs for cancer detection, imaging, and therapy. This special type of light drug helps selectively trigger cancer cell death without harming healthy tissues.
Development of microchips for surgical robots | Ndubuisi Ekekwe
Ndubuisi Ekekwe is an Abia-born scientist who is attributed to having developed microchips used in minimally invasive surgical robots. The microchip, also known as a microcontroller, has facilitated the use and efficiency of robots for surgeries in the United States of America and other parts of the world.
The Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO) graduate has been granted a patent over his microchip invention by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). He also co-designed a generation accelerometer, which is known as the XL sensor, for the iPhone, as well as the first wafer-level chip scale package for an inertial sensor created for Analog Devices Corp.
Ekekwe is the founder of First Atlantic Semiconductors & Microelectronics, a West African-based company.
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INYE Tablet | Saheed Adepoju
With various technological devices such as tablets being produced and shipped to Africa, the need to design tablet computers for the African market became essential. Cometh the man Saheed Adepoju, who invented the INYE-1 & 2 tablets.
Adepoju, alongside his company, Encipher Limited, a Nigerian-based technology company, launched the first android-powered tablet in Nigeria. Unveiled in April 2010, the INYE 1 is a 7-inch resistive screen tablet which runs an Android 2.1 operating system and enables users to connect to the Internet using its inbuilt WIFI card and to use an external 3G modem from GSM networks.
The INYE 2, on the other hand, is an 8-inch capacitive screen tablet launched in May 2011. It runs on the Android 2.2 operating system and users can access the Internet only via an inbuilt Wi-Fi card, as well as its inbuilt SIM. Unlike its predecessor which guarantees only three hours of battery life, the INYE 2 offers about eight hours of battery life.
‘Hospital in a box’ | Seyi Oyesola
A Nigerian-trained doctor, Seyi Oyesola is credited for co-inventing CompactOR or the “Hospital in a Box”, a solar-powered life-saving operating room which can be transported to remote areas of Africa and set up within minutes.
The “hospital in a box” is a mini hospital run with solar energy or off-grid and completely mobile. Oyesola was inspired to invent the device due to the shortage of power in rural places across Africa and how it affects important activities in hospitals such as surgeries. The portable medical system contains both anaesthetic and surgical equipment.
Multiprocessor chips to allow thread-level speculation (TLS) | Kunle Olotokun
Kunle Olotokun is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The “father of the multi-core processor”, as he is referred to, is renowned for leading the Stanford Hydra research project which developed one of the first chip multiprocessors with support for thread-level speculation (TLS).
The British-Nigerian, who is the Director of the Stanford Pervasive Parallelism Lab, is also attributed to having made the following novel inventions: the first general-purpose multi-core CPU, innovating single-chip multiprocessor and multi-threaded processor design, and pioneering multicore Central Processing Units (CPUs) and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), transactional memory technology and domain-specific languages programming models.
