Introducing Africas first stainless steel stove
[Music]
this world has produced a number of
inventors from different generations
from thomas edson to bill gates
to steve jobs including myself and not
younger
but most of you might be wondering how
and why
before that to be important that we
understand what
inventor is
an inventor is a person or a group of
individuals
who come up with a solution for a
particular problem having said that
let me tell you my story so that we can
be able to
work together and understand why i spoke
that i fall under that category
in 2015 i was only 18
in my high high school days and trying
to finish up my
retwelve and to go home so that
i can go out there abroad and pick any
career
and start my life
i was excited about it
but in that very same year in 2015
zambia was in trouble
because for those of you who follow the
hist of the country
you would remember that we had energy
deficit
and lord shedding some of you might call
it
and not only the household was affected
but also industries and government
institutions
in one way or the other everyone was
affected
and people kept on complaining
about the same problem because eight
hours of blood shedding
was too much
when it comes on the household level in
times of food preparation
you don’t probably prepare your meal on
time or you get laid at work
it was that at very time i was just in
high school
and i didn’t just want to be part of the
people who complained about the same
problem
but i wanted to contribute in one way or
the other
so one of the days as i was in my class
i do something on paper
showed it around my friends in class
outside class including my mentoric
teacher
but no one understood what i had drawn
on paper
this was a stove that would cook
bake fry roast warm
right without using power but at that
time also
i needed materials to build that stove
resources finance it
so i approached my squad administration
so that they could
finance the project
but their response was that it was a bit
expensive and it almost costed me the
same amount as
my school fees so
the project wasn’t supported
it was a small setback i thought within
myself that i can still
do something about it i still need this
because this
is a solution to the problem we’re
facing
so that time i remember one of the days
i was moving in school
and i came across some old scrap metals
from an old locker that was dumped
somewhere
and i picked them up watched the
material
and took it to the school workshop and
started building my stuff
i remember missing my classes for about
a month and three weeks
at that time
we were all preparing though for exams
but after
three a month and three weeks we did
manage to complete the project
and it went on to be exhibited at the
provincial
jet sphere or national fair you might
call it
until it went on to the nationals where
it came out second in the country
after coming back from the national
affair
and writing my exams then i went back
home
the copper build the following year in
2016
i turned into an entrepreneur i started
selling my stoves
for about three months business was good
but something happened a big partnership
landed on me that i had never expected
to come my way
by southern africa stainless steel
development association
in south africa this was to improve the
stove
from mild steel to stainless steel with
high advanced technology so that
it can compete even on the international
market
but that time
i kept on asking myself because there
were a number of challenges that i had
made then
because that same very adjusting road in
school started my bachelor’s
at degrees university in development
studies
that was the first challenge the second
challenge was that
i had never traveled outside the country
and thirdly i was exposed to a new
industry stainless steel industry
that i didn’t know anything about it
and even in my country i don’t pick up a
mentor
would show me the way to go about it
so after about two years in south africa
kept down every summer
travel and we completed the project
which i named the juven stainless stove
which i named after my parents justine
and vincent
after the completion of the stove the
stove was awarded at the international
stainless steel award
and was certified as a world-class
product
making it the first mark of its kind
zambian product
the stainless steel industry
after 2018 of the international
stainless steel awards i came back home
here
with good hopes excited and
right away i came to i signed a 1.2
million deal with the means of youth and
sports so that we can build the first
world-class plant
in zambia so that we can produce the
stoves within and export
unfortunately due to the covey 19 a
number of issues
it didn’t work that was a big setback in
my career
and a lot of hopes
went within me because i had worked
tirelessly
the past three years used personal
resources and a number of
people had hoped this to come
but i looked at the bigger picture
thanks to the mentorship
and to the experience and the exposure
i’d gotten in the stainless steel
industry in south africa
that gave me a courage to go and work on
something more better than what we had
built in south africa
this was a partnership in asia in 2020
the tombstone machinery to work on the
stove that will become the first of its
kind in africa to be part with three
fuels
that’s gas electricity and solid fuel
on one product this took up
about a year and some months in asia and
we did manage to complete the project
but what inspired me to go on further
despite us building on something in
south africa i looked at the gap that
was there in the market
this gap was firstly economic spaces in
homes
mostly we buy stoves where we’re coming
from we buy stoves that are powered by
single source of energy it’s either just
on
electricity or bias on gas or just solid
on fuel
for you to buy all the three space
economic spaces in homes
the cost expenses attached to buying all
the three
and also the energy just convenience of
your the energy that you want
you prefer to use it for so that’s what
led me to build this dove which was
certified and also has been recognized
as the face of its kind in africa
a stainless steel stove that is powered
with gas electricity and solid fuel
it has 12 boats and 12 nuts that allows
you to assemble it
you can dismantle it meaning you can not
only push it in your homes but
you can also take it in outdoors for
example if you’re going camping you can
just break it
and you’re going to use it wherever you
want to go to use it
the stove for myself and the stove
itself
does lead me to a number of awards
like the city micro bank entrepreneur
most resilient youth in zambia
2020 the marathon p awards
outstanding entrepreneur in the u.s
the global student entrepreneurship
award
the ceo to the africa award and the most
prestigious of them all
the african genius award which i was
nominated alongside africa’s richest man
aliko dangote looking at this all
we can learn something from this
i did not go outside gone
seek for a solution to come and solve a
local problem
but i started from where i was
and looked around me and searched for
local materials within me
that would help to solve a problem that
we had
so each one of you that you should look
within yourselves
within where you are your environment
search for materials that you can use
to solve the problems that you are
facing which i
call local solutions for local problems
it starts from there
going forward
i dream of a day
of where we’ll have our own world-class
plant in zambia and
be able to produce the stores for
exports
not only in the region
but across the world impacting lives
and changing lives in the way we lived
we thought even in terms of job creation
and worth creation
for the betterment of the future
thank you
[Music]
you