The Technology Center, a sparkling structure of glass shaped like a sloping cylinder, is the centerpiece of Electronic Park in Duisburg, Germany. It stands in the middle of the Ruhr Valley, the heart of Germany’s industrial sector. On the second floor of the center, in the offices of ITS (Institut für Technische Dokumentation, Schulung und Beratung), company president Edouard Mbemba, 42, carefully considers the scaled model of a machine that will soon be the centerpiece of his company. The machine separates waste materials for recycling, a highly profitable aspect of the heavy-industry trade.
ITS consists of two companies, “the mechanical engineering component, and one in which I train people to be draftsmen and information technology workers,” says Mbemba. Projected 2003 revenues for ITS are 1.2 million euros (or $1.3 million U.S.): 60% from worker training and 40% from engineering design and consultation. “The [worker] training is supported by Arbeitsamt, the state employment and human resources agency, and another government agency,” adds Mbemba.
But the engineer turned CEO is far more focused on his recycling machine. “I’m currently overseeing construction on a model of the machine at a university research center,” he says. The project is financed by Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Technologie (the Federal Department of Economy and Technology) and will be completed by June 2004.
Mbemba designed the machine around the mathematical principle of the sinuskurve, or sine wave. “It will take any material — building material for example — and separate the lighter material from the heavier. Water is rhythmically pumped into a container with an eccentric drive, building up pressure and then releasing it. The lighter materials rise to the top and the heavier ones fall to the bottom. The two loads are then collected in separate compartments,” he explains.
The current recycling technology uses a mechanical, continuous wave process. Mbemba’s machine, however, has an electronic component that calculates and sets the accelerated lifting/uplift and the decelerated downstroke of the bed in which the material is placed. Consequently, Mbemba refers to his design as a Schwingsetzmaschine, or pulse-setting machine. Its applications are many and manifold in environmentally conscious Germany, especially in the eastern part of the country, where old Soviet-style factories are in desperate need of refitting.
MAKING CONNECTIONS
In addition to heading ITS, Mbemba is also head of the North Rhine-Westphalia branch of Initiative Schwarze Deutsche (ISD), an organization that promotes the interests, and businesses, of blacks in Germany. Born in the Congo and adopted by a German couple after the death of his birth parents, Mbemba’s involvement in ISD has not only helped him reunite
When Mbemba flew to Kinshasa to meet his relatives, it sparked the idea for a new venture: the family-owned Loba TéléCom, which operates six telephone and Internet stores in Kinshasa. “One is run by my brother, another by my sister, a third by a cousin, and the others by a distant cousin and her five children,” says Mbemba, who manages the venture remotely.
And although family ties have made it easier for Mbemba to launch his new business in Africa, he says business opportunities exist for those who wish to venture there. But he cautions, “You need a person of trust in Africa who is capable of thinking along business-management lines. The investor will lose up to 40% of his venture capital if he does not have such a person. Most investors end up bankrupt within the first six months because they shoot for quick gains and invest all their capital to expedite the process. Equity capital should never exceed 30% of the total investment. A start-up and development team should be brought in to oversee the project for the next few months, or even years. Only then will investment in African countries be profitable mid- or long-term.” But Mbemba adds that because of “red tape and corruption,” a waste of 30% has to be taken into account. “This shrinkage is considered absolutely normal.”