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The Hidden Edge - unveiled by Science in Africa
review by Garth Cambray
"The Hidden Edge - South Africa's quest for innovation", written and compiled by Graeme Addison and published by the Engineering Association, details the
author and his colleagues' journey into the heart of South African Technological Innovation. Plastic supermarket trolleys, cement breakwaters known as a
dolos, water-conserving 'dry' cooling towers on the worlds largest coal-fired power plants, wind up radios,
the Bell sugar cane loader and dump trucks are a few of the fascinating local innovations described. As a biotechnologist, I was amazed to see the number of products which I use on a daily basis that have a South African innovative component. Prattleys Wondafix, a product described in the book is used by researchers in the laboratory in which I work at Rhodes University, to secure membranes manufactured by the Institute for Polymer Science at the University of Stellenbosch, which is also mentioned in the book. This research programme has been funded by the same funders as the Hidden Edge, namely the Department of Arts, Culture Science and Technology (DACST) and ESKOM so that clean water can be made for all. As a beekeeper, some of my beehives are protected by razor wire, a South African innovation on barbed wire. My diesel bakkie (pickup-truck) has on many occasions enjoyed clean low sulphur SASOL
fuel, also to be read about in the Hidden Edge.
(It is an easy reading book, with a chapter being a nice break time read. I placed it on the dashboard of my bakkie and picked it up whenever I had to wait somewhere. This proved to be unsatisfactory as I could never get to the end of an innovation before I had to move on, so after two days the book migrated to the kitchen, where it's logical progression of topics helped me burn supper every night for almost a week.)
There is something very relaxing about reading a positive book about South Africa. In a country dominated by newspapers which are normally negative for the first four pages I was not in the least bit surprised that I had not heard of this excellent nation building read on any of those pages in the year since
its publication. I recommend it to anyone. If you enjoy sport, read it and find out how SA innovation has helped sport (e.g. measuring the speed of a cricket ball). If you enjoy electrical, mining, digital, plastic, water, communication, transportation, medical, chemical, space/aerospace, military and quite a few other technologies, and appreciate objective positive writing, you will enjoy the Hidden Edge. If you don't enjoy any of these topics it will help you overcome that little problem and join the future as well.
What will strike you about the innovations and inventions described is that they are largely very practical. When discussing this with Dr Janice Limson, the founder of Science in Africa, I commented that it seemed to reflect the 'Boer maak a plan' (farmer makes a plan) outlook of South Africa. She replied that the saying is really, 'n Boer maak n plan, maar n kleurling het altyd n plan' (a farmer makes a plan, but a coloured person always has a plan). This definitely is in line with the national motto chosen by DACST and written in the now extinct language of the !Xam: '!ke e:/xarra //ke,' (Unity in Diversity).
The Hidden Edge is an exciting history text. The Hidden Edge empowers the South African reader as it is a catalogue of what we can build on from our history of innovation.
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