The other day, a friend of mine caught me with my eyes glued on an electronics shop window. I was admiring the beautiful state of the art electronic gadgets on sale. First, a digital sony camera, then Apple ipad, blackberry and other endless assortment of newest electronic gadgets that have become part of our daily life. As my eyes scanned through the assortment of the various items, I could not help but imagine and marvel at the engineering genius of the people who have built these products.

At the same time, sadness got into my mind when I realised that all these things that I stood on the shop window admiring were all made elsewhere and brought to us to buy them. None of all those items had a label "made anywhere in Africa". This left me with many questions in my mind. The biggest one being, where are our engineers? Each year, Universities in Africa churn out hundreds of electrical and electronic engineers. Some also attend engineering courses abroad and excel beyond anybody's imagination. What goes wrong when they come back to Africa? Are we only good at engineering theory and fail miserably to connect theory and practical engineering? Does anybody have an answer? I will be happy to hear about it. Email me on info@inve-track.com