An Engineer and a Scientist walk into a bar
When we talk about creatives, we are often referring to musicians, writers and dancers. Fields that we most often associate with creativity. Almost never do engineers come up, and yet, they are my favourite artists. Think of dropping a mound of clay in front of a sculptor and asking them to create something. Except now that mound of clay is the reality of the world, immutable – at least out of our control – laws of physics and science, and we ask engineers every day to make something of it. Electric motors, bridges, radios…are all things that require incredible amounts of creativity to design, deploy, and maintain.
Similar to how the quality of clay affects the eventual sculpture, the quality of knowledge affects the systems, equipment and materials we build. Engineering is an applied science and it is improved by an increased understanding of the world. The reverse is not always the case. In fact, it is often more effective to divorce a quest for understanding the world from a direct desire to shape it. What we would term “useless science".
I most recently read Suzanne Clarke’s Piranesi. We follow the titular character as he attempts to craft an understanding of the mystical house he finds himself in. He diligently journals and records events in this house, both for sanity – as a semi-lone character in this world – but also, in reverence for his world. His knowledge eventually proves useful as it saves him from a flood but we get the sense that this did not exactly matter to him. That understanding was valuable for its own sake. I posit that we cannot sustainably supply quality ingredients for engineers to shape our world without this attitude.
Whose World?
Earlier we talked about an understanding of the world as a necessity for shaping it. But what is the world? Earth? Sometimes. The truth is that there are localised and globalised realities. Atoms and molecules are for example, a global reality. Are typhoons? This 1914 reader essay very accurately names a problem I have long struggled with giving words to — Nigeria’s complete outsourcing of innovation. The essay demonstrates the very high cost of ignorance and the steep societal price we pay for outsourcing innovation particularly in the localised context. Weather patterns are not the same world over, neither are disease patterns or rock formation patterns and there is limited incentive for other nations to dedicate research endeavours to understanding your localised reality.
While I agree with this argument, I want to expand its reach even further. The same attitude required to fix the problem of outsourcing the research of your local issues to other nations, is required to have an impact in the global context.
If you decide today to study biochemistry in my alma mater, for instance, it would be almost impossible to escape the question of what the degree is worth. A lot of this is a function of the current societal setup. There are few labs directly concerned with the kind of research that degree will train you for. So it is reasonable for young people trying to make a future to ask this question. What is completely unreasonable is that this attitude exists even in other echelons of society with people who actually have the influence to change the reality of the country’s research facilities. It is one, although far from the only, strong reason why we have contributed little to the scientific revolutions and its stunning outcomes.
A vehicle for agency
The economic dimension to innovation is clear. What is sometimes understated is that dignity and agency are also key by-products of being people who put knowledge into the world. The question of whether or not a system or product was made with consumers like you in mind is answered more favourably when you are an active participant in its creation.
PowerLabs is dedicated to solving the energy problem. It is also dedicated to putting Africans at the forefront of innovation in both local and global contexts. Globally, increasing energy demand, increased reliance on renewables and aging grids have necessitated energy solutions in the developed world that have already been haphazardly deployed in the developing world. As a laboratory, we are interested in core scientific questions on energy storage technologies, decentralised grid organisation, digitised electricity infrastructure, among others.