KStartups crop up in Nairobi every other day and have been churning out unique innovations but a glaring problem is that there are no laws that protect innovators with quite a number of people led by the fact that you cannot lay claim to an idea or patent it.
In the face of this issue, Now President Uhuru Kenyatta is urging parliament to come up with laws to promote local innovators so as to accelerate the county’s industrialization process.
Speaking Friday at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) in Juja when he presided over the university’s 20th anniversary celebrations, Kenyatta said: “That is what we want to do as a country if we are truly to become an industrialised nation.”
“But we will not industrialise if we continue importing second-hand vehicles and other goods. Let us make these things ourselves. We have the capacity to do so.”
Kenyatta was of the opinion that if the empowerment of youth was to be entrenched, said the allocation of 30% of Government procurement to them must be observed to the youth, women and people with disability.
The president who was impressed by the innovations at the institution urged stakeholders to ensure it made it t the 100 bets universities in the world in the next ranking of institutions of higher learning.
“Count on my government’s support as you endeavour to do that,” President Kenyatta said.. “From the innovations of our young people, I am convinced that we havethe technological capacity to drive our development agenda,” he said.