Ali Liban

Thanks to BID Team for putting this important effort together.
It is very useful for networking.

I am a engineer /inventor from Somalia currently based in Saudi Arabia.

I studied engineering in the UK during the 80s. What hit me first about Europe was the availability of basic needs of water,electricity, transportation, health and other services that are in short supply in Africa. I was almost envious. After graduation I decided move back to Somalia and Ethiopia to find technology solutions for poverty.

Once back in Africa, I was not sure what I could do as an individual. I had little access to lab facilities and over the years learned to base my designs and inventions on natural concept. Natural systems have numerous technology advantages. The concepts have evolved over the ages by utilizing natural resources often at molecular level. Their design concepts are therefore in tune with nature and hence suitable for sustainable product designs for industrial purposes which must be explored. Moreover, they have inbuilt mechanisms for responding to external stimuli and adjust their energy consumption accordingly for a higher efficiency. New technologies have technical, prototyping, commercialization, and marketing risks. However, natural concepts have been tested and re-tested over the ages through natural process and this decreases technical risks and makes their prototyping easier. These technologies often have more potential for meet market demands thus enhancing marketing and commercialization through market demand push rather than technology pull common in other technologies. The simplified designs are suitable for developing countries. Natural systems also utilize electric resonance and frequency modulation etc. These mechanisms can be used for increasing energy content a process which makes use of combining electromagnetic waves and does not require extra energy input. They also have less moving parts than mechanical system which increases efficiency and lowers product costs for the customer.
These concepts can also be adapted for other applications for more the development of further technologies solutions.

I have a number of patents in solar energy, wind turbines and efficient motors etc. as result .. I am in the process of commercializing these inventions and searching for ways SME establishment in Developing Countries. The BID Network would be very useful for this purpose.

Also
International agencies have been working on ways to improve living conditions in Africa for decades. Yet poverty is on the increase. Is there a missing factor in the international effort? I believe there is.

In the urban setting in Africa we find high levels of corruption, waste of resources and maladministration etc. which is causing low productivity and poverty. But in the traditional systems there is high levels of accountability, resource allocation methods, freedom of speech, respect for the individual rights and high levels of motivation for individual and team formation etc. People with high levels of education operate the urban systems while traditional elders have no such training. The dichotomy required some explanation. This started me on personal challenge to investigate and study different organizational systems from within Africa. I find that these systems have certain structures for power sharing, conferencing, title allocation, training through age-grouping, information exchange, balancing and stability, team building, standard setting, performance monitoring, individual motivation and rewarding. These organizational structures operate at different levels each supporting the other. The bottom levels deals with local basic needs at clan level. The top portion deals with external demands at tribal level. The mid portion caters for the shared mutual demands. This way all the demands of the community are cared for. The individual can contribute to the systems at all levels and hence becomes an integral part of the whole.

My aim is to combine these efficient organizational systems with the new technologies for enterprise formation and eventual poverty alleviation and would be grateful for your support and that of others working in this field.