Industries for Africa (IfA), a Swedish-based foundation, has launched a mega project which allows top African mechanical engineering students to manufacturer tractors and other machines.
The project will enable Africa to produce machinery using 100 percent local resources and advanced technology.
“We train the students using numerous computer programs on tractor production and creating machines using only local resources,” said Orjan Ring, Founder of Industries for Africa.
“Africa has all the natural resources needed to produce such machinery, what it lacks is only the technology to develop these resources. And our foundation has found the solution to address this bottle neck,” he said.
The project will be implemented in selected African countries for the coming ten years and Ethiopia is one of the other three counties chosen by the foundation to start with. Senegal, Togo and Ghana are other countries selected by the foundation.
The shortcut technology transfer project among other things is expected to boost the agricultural productivity of Sub Saharan African countries while saving the hard currency they spend from importing the machinery from abroad.
“The double-digit GDP growth of Ethiopia for the past six years and the large population of the country and the richness of natural resources are among the major reasons we decided to start the project here,” chairman of the foundation, Andrea Lennberg, said.
The foundation has now invited high-achieving mechanical engineering students in Ethiopia to contact the foundation via email. After completing its review, the foundation will also announce two additional Sub-Saharan African nations for similar projects.
According to the foundation heads, they will collaborate with ethiopian institutes to provide training at universities. The mechanical tools needed for the training will be imported by the foundation to produce a tractor. The process includes about 400 small-scale industries.
“We will train students for all fields of the small industries that include the ground level productions; like the mining of iron ore locally,” the foundation members said. “According to our research, the country has most of the resources locally, which are needed for tractor manufacturing and the training helps the trainers to develop their own skill to produce the necessary equipment for the industry,” they said.
If the country does not have some resources, it will import from other African countries working with the foundation.
The foundation plans to help students to establish their own industry. “We will facilitate the trainees to get finance from local banks and micro financial institutions to found their company,” the foundation members explained.
Ten top students will be selected for the first round training and will be provided with financing mechanisms, which will allow them to get money to establish machinery manufacturing factories here in Ethiopia after completing the training. Advanced tractor production opportunity for top students. The machineries and tractors, which the students are expected to manufacture locally after taking practical and theoretical training using new technology, meets international standards and is cost competitive.  
The foundation also plans to purchase 10 percent of the machines to for distribution to European markets in order to generate hard currency for African counties. The IfA members said that the training will take from one year to six months based on the courses.  
Industries for Africa is a nonprofit organization funded by major continental and global donor organizations. The goal of the Industries for Africa Foundation is to aid the people in Africa in building the sustainable industrial infrastructure that they so desperately need.