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| Sunday, 24 November 2002 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Amazing inventions by ASIFF HUSSEIN
Necessity it is said is the mother of invention and it is necessity that has prompted many a local youth to use his creative genius to produce some very remarkable inventions that have gone on to win international acclaim. This is seen from the fact that Sri Lankan inventors have of late bagged some top awards at the Inventors Exhibition held annually in Geneva. According to the Commissioner of the Sri Lanka Inventors Commission, Dr. L.M.K. Tillekeratne, most of the inventors hail from remote rural areas and not from the urban areas where one finds superior schools. This he attributes to the fact that rural youth constantly experience a need for improving their lives by devising newer and better ways and means of doing things. This combined with the day to day experience they gain in their various areas of activity drives them on the path to innovation. Urban youth on the other hand do not experience a need for innovation due to the conveniences around them, he explained.
The main purpose of the Inventors Commission is to help inventors commercialise their inventions and to perfect 'half-baked' ideas of inventors by directing them to relevant organisations like the National Engineering Research and Development Centre and the Arthur C. Clark Centre and to disburse funds for their further development wherever necessary. Inventors are also entitled to receive soft loans from the Presidential Fund as well as grants to cover the cost of turning out a prototype model before it could be produced on a commercial scale, said Dr. Tillekeratne. The Ministry of Commerce and Consumer Affairs under whose purview the commission functions is especially keen to see that more and more local ideas are commercialised not only for domestic use but also to bring in more foreign exchange to the country.
The encouragement given to inventors by the State has paid rich dividends. For instance, Sri Lankans have been awarded the special WIPO gold medal for developing countries twice in the recent past, the first for an ingenious rubber tapping machine devised by Ravindra Senaratne and the second for a safety kerosene lamp which gets extinguished even if tilted by as little as 30 degrees developed by Wimalasiri Alwis. More importantly, such inventions could be commercialised and exported thus bringing in valuable foreign exchange to the country. When an invention is patented and commercialised, the inventor as the patent holder is entitled to receive a royalty from the manufacturer. This however depends on the agreement between the inventor and the manufacturer. Such royalties do not usually amount to more than 15 per cent of the selling price since the manufacturer too has to keep a profit margin on the product, explained Dr. Tillekeratne. In the case of inventors who are minors there is also a third party to be taken into account which is the parents of the child. The parents often feel that such inventions should be left for the child to commercialise when he is mature, but we strongly advise them to patent and commercialise it as quickly as possible before somebody else steals the idea, he said.
Three major inventions have been commercialised in the recent past. One is a Force Draft Firewood Stove developed by D.M. Punchibanda of the NERD centre which won the Presidential Award last year as well as a silver award at the Inventors Exhibition held in Geneva this year. Two hundred such units have been manufactured by the NERD centre at Ekala and are being sold at Rs. 3,450 a piece. Whereas conventional stoves cannot be used in modern day flats such as those in Colombo since the lack of ventilation invariably causes soot and other problems, the stove devised by Punchibanda involves the complete combustion of the firewood, the whole of which is converted into a blue flame so that there is neither smoke nor soot. In fact, the stove is claimed to be a viable alternative to LP gas and may provide a solution to the ever-increasing LP gas problem in the country. The stove also shows much export potential and Punchibanda plans to export it to countries like Bangladesh and certain parts of India. Another invention devised and commercialised by the NERD centre under the direction of Dr. Victor Mendis is an extremely efficient bio-gas convertor which could produce bio-gas from straw for cooking and other purposes continuously for six months. Once the six month period is over, all one has to do is to put in straw from the next kanne and run it for another six months.
The sediment could also be easily removed and applied as fertilizer. Over 200 such units have been installed in various localities all over the country. Yet another invention commercialised by the NERD centre is a small scale coconut oil extractor invented by Kumari Ranatunga. The extractor which is based on the sekkuva principle yields a pure white transparent oil which could be used for hair care or cooking purposes. The cake when taken out and mixed with water yields non-fat coconut milk which could be used for cooking purposes by health conscious people. Another is a cashew kernel extracting machine devised by B.K. Maheepala of Develapola. The device which won the gold medal at the Presidential Awards last year extracts the kernel from the cashew without splitting it. As such it has a high commercial value. Maheepala turned down requests from the UK and Madagascar to commercialize the product after having received monies from the Presidential Fund and is now producing it at his own factory at Udugampola where he sells it at around Rs. 60,000 a piece. Yet other inventions are in the process of being commercialised. Take for instance the coin counter devised by Thushan Weragala of Siri Piyarathana Maha Vidyalaya Padukka which won a silver medal in Geneva. The counter enables a coin count without even sorting them out, the count being indicated by a digital display. Weragala is presently engaged in modifying his counter at the NERD centre to meet the needs of commercial banks and places of religious worship.
A complex seed planting machine developed by Kosala Kaushalya Weeraratne of Rajapaksha Maha Vidyalaya, Weeraketiya is another notable invention. The machine enables one to decide on the space between the holes and does the holing and filling of the hole with fertilizer, insecticide or pesticide before covering it and sprinkling it with water, all in a matter of seconds. In fact, the engineers who examined the machine were astounded to find that a lad so young had achieved so ingenious a feat. The NERD centre is presently engaged in turning out a prototype model at a cost of Rs.100,000 after which it could be produced and commercialized on a mass scale. A pedal-operated coconut scraper which enables one to scrape the two halves of a coconut expeditiously has been devised by Chatura Madhubhashita Herath of Bandarawela Madya Maha Vidyalaya. The invention has been handed over to Odiris & Co. the principal coconut scraper manufacturers in the country and should be available for sale at around Rs.1000 towards the end of the year. It is expected to be especially useful in places where food is produced on a mass scale such as hotels and hostels. Yet another interesting invention in the process of being commercialised is a wallet with an electronic safety device developed by Ayal Nilupa Herath of Mayurapada National School, Mawanella. The wallet which sounds an alarm when picked thus enabling the thief to be caught on the spot, has been handed over to P.G.Martin & Co. which is exploring the possibilities of manufacturing it here to be exported to Australia. There are also those inventions that have contributed considerably to safeguarding the environment, both here and overseas. Consider for example the case of a non-toxic and environmentally-friendly bleaching agent for crepe rubber developed by Dr. Tillekeratne who is a chemist by profession and Director of the Rubber Research Institute at Agalawatte. The product has been commercialized and is manufactured by four companies in Sri Lanka, one of which Chemanix markets it in India and Indonesia. An environmentally-friendly invention, a packing material made of coir pith developed by P.N. Nandadasa was awarded the International Federation of Inventors Association (IFIA) Cup at Geneva as well as a substantial grant from the Presidential Fund. What is particularly interesting about this invention is how it turned coir pith, once a big industrial menace into a viable, bio-degradable packing material to replace tyrofoam or rigifoam. Whereas rigifoam takes as much as 10-15 years to decay completely, coir pith packaging formed by pressure moulding takes the consistency of cow dung shortly after a shower besides enriching the soil.It therefore shows huge export potential to the environmentally-conscious European market. Yet another important invention, an aerobic and anaerobic treatment plant for factory effluent has been developed by Dr. Gamini Seneviratne and could be employed to treat wastes from food canning, desiccated coconut and rubber product manufacturing industries. The constant flow method employed by the plant means that the effluent entering from one side is purified at the other end before being discharged into water waste. The plant meets all the requirements of the Central Environmental Authority and is said to be far superior and more cost effective when compared to imported treatment plants. Forty such units have been installed in various industrial concerns and show much promise for reducing environmental pollution in the country. |
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There presently exists two annual nationwide awards to recognise Sri
Lankan inventors, namely, the Presidential Awards for Inventions which is
open to the public including schoolchildren and the National Awards for
Inventions which is limited to the Inventors Clubs formed in national
schools. The Inventors Commission has helped form over 1,200 Inventors
clubs which are provided free text books on inventions as well as costly
tool kits for turning out small inventions.
