Through the "innovate and empower" project I singlehandedly developed an improved drawing set comprising of a drawing board and a T-Square by capitalizing a pedagogical concept called TALULAR (Teaching And Learning Using Locally Available Resources). This innovation is differentiated from other tools in that it has new features including an under wedge, and a T-Square edged at 30 Degrees to satisfy work ergonomics and ensure an effective drawing process. The second arm of the project involved development of a guide book for training students in creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship and career development. Nonetheless a related interactive mobile application was developed to allow a direct communication with the users.
Lack of drawing tools inspired my innovation of drawing sets and are important because learning Engineering drawing is impossible without them. Since then, 3000+ students have been helped.
The plight of educating engineering students without competence in Design and Realization as well as the inability of these intellectuals to apply creativity and entrepreneurship in their field of study was my core motivation to outwork this innovation. The Lilongwe Technical College survived off the donation of Japan for Drawing tools and ever since the donation was cut off and the drawing tools got write off, the college struggled to obtain new tools from 2011-until 2014 when I released the innovation. It really touched my heart and I felt it was the most noble thing to do to work out an innovation to address the problem than waiting for another donation which until now is far fetched.
I didn't know how much important the innovation was until the principal told me they were living on the mercy of donors. Failure which there was no immediate solution. When students begun using the innovation there was a great improvement in Engineering Drawing to an extent that none of the students failed exams that year. The whole first beneficially class of about 80 students passed exams which was not the case in the past years. Nonetheless, subsidiary colleges around Malawi requested of this innovation for they were facing similar problems. Meaning that the impact had a ripple effect. Therefore the number of students who have been given a good future is probably 3000+ and that's the wow factor about this innovation.
I pointed out that the innovation has two arms with the second one being the development of the creativity and entrepreneurship book which came as a result of establishing mentor-ship programs at the institution. These mentor-ship programs are still in operation and have officially been enacted by the college. Three lecturers have been selected and put on payment to handle these programs. The book has so been accepted by the country to an extent that different organizations have purchased it and distributed to the youth while some use it for training people in the subject covered therein .
