By EVAN MWANGI

Young Kenyans have surprised the nation by achieving feats hitherto thought unachievable in a developing nation. But where the young achievers go after grabbing headlines, only God knows.

In 1972, students Stephen Alumasa and James Ndambi made a ticker-tapetelegraph.

Three years later, another student, John Kipyego Murgor made simple radio sets. He was 19 years old. young at the time but his prowess was not given room to flourish.

In the late 1980s, a Tana River student unveiled invented at a science congress an insecticide which proved effective. The discovery, like its innovator, soon became an item in the archives.

Two years after Kenya's independence, Mr Boaz Owuor from Nyanza made a clock out of wood. He also made a guitar and a weighing machine. He, too, soon became an item in the discovery statistics.

In 1988, David Mwangi Macharia, an 18-year-old student at General China High School, Nyeri District, startled the then Voice of Kenya out of its slumber when he invented a radio station, Sauti ya Unjiru (Voice of Unjiru).

Master Macharia's station comprised a combination of a receiver, transmitter, record player and cassette player. It broadcast music and news from his home region. The VoK quickly ordered him to close down the station for encroaching upon its broadcasting territory.

The student also made electricity from pit latrines. Later on, he developed a remote-controlled car.

A peasant scientist, who had problems paying his school fees, Macharia could not go further than repairing radios in the down-market Dandora suburbs of Nairobi. - despite his great talents.

As far back as the 1960s, Mr Morris Tito Gachamba startled the world when he flew his home-made aircraft. He was in the news also several times for developing other hi-tech prototypes. He, too, never got a chance to hurl Kenya into the industrial age.

In 1981, physically handicapped Christopher Wathungi Chege from Ruiru made history when he made a helicopter using corrugated iron sheets and a Volkswagen engine.

Although he could not fly his chopper higher than five feet for fear of the consequences in case the flight went awry, his was an ambitious project.

The disabled man could not continue with the project for lack of funds even after pumping Sh19,000 ($251) into the innovation.

A similar fate befell disabled Wycliffe Kepha Anyanzwa, famous for his "Kefa-mobile", a three-wheel scooter for the disabled. The man responsible for designing wheelchairs and polio boots depended on wellwishers to keep his innovations going because institutional support was not forthcoming.

In 1989, Shadrack Opiyo marked the 25th anniversary of Kenya's independence on December 12 by making electronic keyless locks and a dual light-operated switch.

Although there were other electronic locks on the market, his was cost-effective because it went for Sh600 ($8) only. Lack of funding struck his project a fatal blow.

In the arts, children have startled veterans by coming up with remarkable creations. Sheila Nhemi, a Form One one student at Precious Blood Girls' Secondary School, Riruta, Nairobi, wrote a novel, Midnight Blossom, sponsored by the British Council and and FAWE and published this year by Focus Books.

Jackson Kariuki, a Form Three student at Ofafa Jericho, Nairobi, is a star in the film Out of Darkness; while Kenneth Alai is among Kenyan teenagers doing well on the stage.

Young people are vibrant in the arts, but they are not very active in the sciences and technology.

The 1990s, when the 8-4-4 system was supposed to have produced its first batch of scientists, is audibly quiet. The youth are heard more in disco halls belting out fancy post-modern tunes than making scientific discoveries.

Young people elsewhere too have made great achievements. In June 1994, American Michael Kearney became the world's youngest graduate at the age of 10 years, four months.

On September 30, 1717, Colin Maclaurin of Scotland became a professor of Mathematics at the age of 19.

At age 17, David Sandeman sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic.

Ganesh Sittampalam of Britain graduated from the university in July 1992 when he was only 13. He had passed his A-levels (Form Six) at the age of nine.

Briton Lawrence Bragg won the 1915 Physics Nobel Prize for work he did when he was 23 years old, while American Theodore Richards was 23 years old when he won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1914.

On March 1993, 14-year-old chess player Ettiene Bacrat of France became the youngest International Grand Master.

High achievers are a combination of ideal personality and social and economic support.

While genius is often seen as genetically inherited, it is also conditioned by the environment and economic, political and social circumstances in which a child is born and brought up. It is said that Shakespeare and Mozart would not have come up to be what they turned out to be had they been brought up in non-conducive environments.

Children also copy their parents even indirectly, to become achievers. Competition among peers and siblings produces high achievers. Were it not for competition posed by Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill's place in history may have been very different indeed.

The greatest setback for Kenyan industries is that while Kenyans are well received in artistic circles through informal means, they are not encouraged in scientific innovations, where more money and support is needed.

Further, there are no legal mechanisms to protect innovations from being imitated.

As Kenya gears herself for industrialisation by the year 2020, it would not be a bad idea to get young innovators to lead the onslaught against backwardness.

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