How a makerspace is resolving critical pandemic gaps in Nigeria
When news of COVID-19 arrived in Nigeria, inventor Tochukwu Clinton Chukwueke, saw that import and export of medical supplies were going to get harder. Having already established the Clintonel Innovation Centre, a makerspace in Aba, Abia, he worked to come up with local solutions to help protect people and save lives.
As an inventor, it’s not surprising that Tochukwu with his collection of patents is the founder of Nigeria’s first makerspace. Established in 2017, the Clintonel Innovation Centre trains young people in product design, digital fabrication, and manufacturing. He started the centre as a response to his own difficult experience as a young innovator. “I suffered on my invention journey,” he says. “Lack of funding, support, facilities, equipment, and mentors. I travelled around Nigeria in search of a place to build prototypes for my designs and found none. At that point I made a commitment, ‘when I grow up, I’ll fix this problem and build a centre for innovation where Nigerian talent can get training and support to develop indigenous products.’”
A man of his word, Tochukwu not only founded this centre, he’s also the head of the Hardware Nigeria Community, a national network of Nigerian inventors, makers, and entrepreneurs building an engineering manufacturing ecosystem. Additionally, he serves as CEO of the Advanced Engineering Centre, a place where tools, machines, and equipment is built for the manufacturing and construction sectors.
The centre is based in Aba, Abia part of the southeast region of Nigeria and home to one of the largest concentrations of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country. Recognised for its ingenuity, commerce, and industry — a perfect location for an inventor in need of a makerspace. “Aba is known as the Japan of Africa,” says Tochukwu. “It’s home to some of Africa’s most talented and innovative people and it’s a major manufacturing hub, shipping products to different parts of the continent.”
“…when I grow up, I’ll fix this problem and build a centre for innovation where Nigerian talent can get training and support to develop indigenous products.”
Clintonel intends to serve this bustling fulcrum of enterprise by building capacity in Nigeria for engineering innovation, indigenous product development, and manufacturing. COVIDaction is helping support their ability to create products that are difficult to secure because of pandemic and import restrictions, e.g., household goods, components for broken parts, energy supplies, etc. This will help amplify manufacturers’ and sellers’ efforts by providing the design and fabrication of necessary products and repair items — whatever they may be.
Having a makerspace and some talent on hand, Tochukwu took up the challenge to locally develop COVID-19 production including ventilators, face shields, social distancing mats, and moulds. “We had a focus on PPE production too because Nigeria could no longer import items necessary to save lives,” he says. “We have an obligation to support the nation and fight this virus and, due to its rapid spread, PPE was in short supply.” COVIDaction, through UCL-Ventura, is providing expert assistance to Clintonel to develop their ventilators to support patients with breathing difficulties using designs effective in low- to middle-income country (LMIC) settings.
Making sure that his work is sustainable is a high priority for Tochukwu, “The circular economy ensures sustainability, both of humans and of the environment,” he says. “We need to optimise the use of available resources in an efficient manner to produce zero waste. In the Clintonel Innovation Centre, we recycle waste or scrap metals into raw materials for production. When our products wear out, our customers return them to us and we recycle them into new products. This minimises waste and ensures sustainability for the environment.” Circularity is also demonstrated in trainings they conduct, which includes education on renewable energy and solar panel construction.
Local production support
Local production and local solutions have come to the fore as a driving force to help people in Nigeria during the pandemic. Global import and export have stopped and started over the past year and so finding skilled people, suitable materials, and sites of production are a vital part of the response to COVID-19. Tochukwu is not only working on finding solutions but also feels that local production in Nigeria could do with a boost.
“In order to improve this situation, there’s a lot that can be done,” he explains. “There needs to be better capacity for building engineering and indigenous product development, long term and low or zero interest funding for manufacturers, tax holidays, affordable and uninterrupted power supplies, and government incentives would go a long way.”
To continue developing his work, Tochukwu and the Clintonel Innovation Centre need to work on business development, expansion of CNC programming and machining, access to finance, and securing more advanced manufacturing tools. COVIDaction is providing support by helping them upgrade their facility and procure improved production equipment.
“I want to live in a Nigeria that is technologically advanced, producing the technologies she consumes and exporting technologies to the rest of the world. This is my motivation and drive.”
“I want Clintonel to become the symbol of engineering excellence in Africa,” says Tochukwu. “In the next five years, we expect to provide engineering support to around 800 indigenous manufacturing companies and to sell our products and machines to 500 local manufacturers. I hope we can also train at least 500 Nigerians to become engineering and manufacturing experts and boost Nigeria’s GDP by 10%.”
Clearly driven to create change and support the local and national economy, Tochukwu’s love of engineering is what is pushing him forward, “I’ve always had a very strong passion for technology, innovation, and engineering,” he says. “That was why I studied engineering at university and why I founded the Clintonel Innovation Centre. I want to live in a Nigeria that is technologically advanced, producing the technologies she consumes and exporting technologies to the rest of the world. This is my motivation and drive. In response to the pandemic, I believe we should be able to survive and even thrive in this and any further pandemic. We should have local production capacity to meet our medical needs in a pandemic like this.”
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