Emmanuel Tony茅鈥檚 company makes satellite dishes for Cameroonians, and business is booming. Inside his tiny workshop in a dusty quarter of Yaound茅, a technician strains to bend the steel struts that give the dishes their strength. Another man, brandishing a hand-held riveting gun, staples the reflecting surface to a section of frame. Outside, a completed dish 鈥� gleamingly incongruous in this low-tech, run-down district 鈥� feeds its signals to a TV blaring away in the workshop鈥檚 office.
The business, which Tony茅 set up three years ago, caters for a growing public demand for the TV broadcasts of CNN and other international satellite stations. For those who can afford it, satellite TV is a welcome alternative to the turgid broadcasts of CRTV, the tightly controlled state-run network. In the suburb of Bastos, home to Yaound茅鈥檚 wealthy, it is hard to spot a house without a dish. And ordinary Cameroonians are also getting a look-in, as increasing numbers of bars rig themselves up with satellite TV.
Technological entrepreneurs such as Tony茅 are few and far between in Cameroon, but he holds down an academic career as well, and writes educational computer software in his spare time. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 sleep much,鈥� he jokes.
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Tony茅 took a physics degree in Yaound茅 before leaving to complete his training in France. He spent 10 years in Bordeaux and Toulouse, refining his knowledge of radio antennas. But he was determined that this European education should not be wasted on a European academic career. So in 1987 he told his lab chief that he wanted to go home. Unfortunately, Tony茅鈥檚 boss did not share his view of the importance of contributing to Cameroon鈥檚 development, and tried hard to convince him to stay. He left later that year under something of a cloud. 鈥淚 was very angry,鈥� he recalls.
After a few months of teaching at the Ecole Polytechnique, the engineering school of the University of Yaound茅 I, Tony茅 must have wondered if his stand had been misguided. With few textbooks and no well-equipped teaching lab to put complicated theory into practice, most students found his lectures on antenna design utterly incomprehensible. 鈥淚 had a lot of problems getting them to understand,鈥� he admits.
So he took action. He designed a computer-aided learning software package covering most aspects of antenna theory and design, the first version of which was completed in 1992. More crucially, he decided to provide his students with practical experience by creating a technology-based company in which they could work. Demand for foreign satellite TV was mushrooming, but imported dishes and decoders were expensive. Today, Tony茅s company installs a basic system for just under 拢700 鈥� a small fortune in Cameroon, where 拢60 is a decent monthly salary, but still a good 拢125 less than the cheapest import. Some 10 per cent of the revenues are returned to the engineering school.
Tony茅鈥檚 company now has nine fulltime employees. He estimates about 6000 of the 15 000 or more satellite dishes installed in Cameroon were made locally, some 1000 of them by his company. In one single order, Tony茅 provided 60 dishes to an aluminium-smelting company in his home town of Ed茅a, which in the interests of good industrial relations installed satellite TV in the accommodation it provides for its workforce. And many of the other Cameroon-produced dishes were made by former students who set up their own businesses after learning their craft from Tony茅. 鈥淭oday, creating employment is very important,鈥� he says.
Tony茅鈥檚 dishes are nothing like the familiar compact antennas used in Britain to pick up BSkyB. They measure about 2 metres across, and are made in 5 segments, each consisting of a framework of steel struts bent into the requisite parabolic curve by hand. The reflecting surface is made from sheet zinc, riveted to the frame. Compared with imported dishes, built from mesh mounted on a lightweight metal frame, Tony茅鈥檚 look somewhat homemade. But they perform just as well.
Currently, the dishes鈥� electronic components are imported preassembled, but Tony茅 has already built a prototype feeder, which gathers the signal reflected from the dish surface. The only device that cannot easily be built locally is the converter, which takes signals of around 4 gigahertz from the feeder, and transforms them to a manageable 1 gigahertz. Its sensitive electronic parts must be manipulated in an air-conditioned clean room, which Tony茅鈥檚 workshop is not.
Tony茅鈥檚 success means that he is in great demand, and he is currently helping to set up similar enterprises in Gabon and the Central African Republic. He is also diversifying. Back in the school of engineering, another product is taking shape fast. Tony茅 and his prot茅g茅 Alain Akono have developed a software package for processing satellite images. Despite their lack of previous experience, they have produced a package that can handle the radar images generated by the European Space Agency鈥檚 ERS-1 satellite, converting them into a form which will help map-makers interested in land use and the extent of forest cover. In Europe, the standard tool for processing an ERS-1 image is a state-of-the-art workstation with a fast processor. But these are unheard of in Cameroon, so Tony茅 and Akono wrote their software for a PC.
Tony茅 says that his dream is to establish a large technology transfer centre at the university, based around a 鈥渓aboratory of production鈥� where prototypes can be built. Because there is no culture of research and development in Cameroonian industry, he says, the university must show industry how to do it. Tony茅 has set himself a deadline of his 55th birthday, when he says he will become a full-time businessman. That gives him 12 years. Few who know Tony茅 would bet against him succeeding.
鈥� 鈥業t鈥檚 wrong for the World Bank to have a blanket education policy for the whole of Africa. They are trying to apply a global policy,鈥� Dorothy Njeuma, vice-chancellor, University of Buea, Cameroon
鈥� 鈥楾he government would rather have people from abroad who cost four times as much to do jobs that we are quite capable of doing. They downplay the competence of local experts.鈥� Researcher, Cameroon
鈥� 鈥樞影稍磗 need to realise that the work they put into discoveries should really be moved on to commercialisation, otherwise we are using lots of resources just pleasing ourselves.鈥� Norah Olembo, head, Intellectual Property Organisation, Kenya