Aletta Shikololo
Namibia’s Julia Andjene is the first person in the country to invent a smart coffee machine, contributing to the fourth Industrial Revolution.
As part of her final year project, 23-year old Andjene, an Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering student at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (Nust) invented a smart coffee machine under the supervision and guidance of her Project Supervisor and Lecturer of the Faculty of Engineering Dr Smita Francis.
In an interview with Youth Corner, Andjene said: “I have always wanted to contribute to the innovation industry and make things easier for people in my country and as an Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering student, I took advantage of that and not let my talent and knowledge go to waste.” According to Andjene, the machine works by being controlled by any kind of mobile phone as long as it has the ‘MTC’ network.
“Basically, the machine works as a phone. One only has to send a text message to the machine if they know the number of the machine and they can request the machine to switch on or off and it understand five commands,” the innovative Andjene added. Some of the instructions the machine understands are ‘switch on’, ‘make coffee’, ‘re-heat’,’ switch off’ or ‘enquire if the machine is on or off’.
She added that, with the coffee machine, distance is not a barrier. One can find the coffee done from wherever they are.
With this machine, Andjene said she will fine tune it and find sponsors, so she can manufacture it into a marketable product.
Talking of what the machine is made out, Andjene said, the internal part of the machine is made out of the programmed electronics and the external part is made out of the off-shelf non-programmable coffee machine and she installed her own system. Born and raised in Tsandi in the Omusati Region, Andjene said that her machine is unique because other coffee machines that are on the market, are only designed to operate manually with the presence of the user and they are not made to operate remotely. She added: “My coffee machine is easy to use and it’s not time-consuming.” Andjene advised young innovators in Namibia to align their talents with the industrial transformation towards making Namibia, a better place.