By Isabel K Banda

Lilongwe, July, 12, Mana: A 22-year-old innovator George Kalichero who continues to amaze Malawians with his wonderful innovations by bringing his ideas into reality, is currently working on a planting Hoe which will speed up the planting process for farmers.

Speaking with Malawi News Agency, on Friday, Kalichero said the planting hoe will help farmers by reducing the time that they spend when planting their seeds.

“This hoe is different from the local ones because it has a bottle attached to store seeds and the handle has a button which releases the seed into the planting holes, hence reducing the time the farmer spends when planting with the traditional hoe,” he said.  

According to Kalichero, the new innovation will take him about a month to be finalized and be made available for use.

He also revealed that the planting hoe is one among some of his innovations that he has invented since he started in 2017.

“My first innovation was done in 2020 and it was a windmill which generates electricity and powers my grandmother’s house and 10 of her neighbors in Mulanje, but most people know much about the electric bike which I invented during the fuel crisis period in 2023,” he said.

Kalichero says he gets his inspiration from William Kamkwamba among other local innovators as well as some of the international innovators that are shown on television.

He however, lamented the lack of resources, financial support and mockery that he constantly faces in his innovation journey and urged government and different stakeholders to support and promote innovators for meaningful development.

Recently, Research Manager for National Planning Commission, Dr. Andrew Jamali said there is hope for the innovation sector in Malawi as more youths are emerging with solution-based innovations in the country.

He said: “It is very exciting as you know Malawi vision 2063 is centered on the youths and we just launched the vision about 3 years ago and already we see young people running with the vision by identifying problems and making innovations like these hence this brings hope to the country.”

Kalichero’s brilliance hit the headlines on social media in the past years and drew attention of many in the country. In 2021 he was among innovators that were selected at the Institute of Industrial Research and Innovations at Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST).