The Ghanaian championing science for change in Africa: Learn what drives the 26-year-old serial inventor and multi-global pitch winner to make practical science a reality for students across Africa and beyond.

• Author: Pak, Susanna
• Position: ANALYSIS - Column

Brownish and black, with gold letters on the bindings.

Charles Ofori Antipem was seven or eight years old when he first laid eyes on an A-Z set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica at his local library.

He discovered the library one day while playing outside with friends. He remembered hearing what he called some of the 'best guys in school' talking about it.

'I almost didn't enter,' said the 26-year-old serial inventor from Nsoatre, a town in the Brong Ahafo region in midwestern Ghana. 'But the librarian looked at my face, so I entered.'

This was where Antipem met the likes of master inventors Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and the Wright brothers.

'It was a whole new world,' he said. 'Reading about these people made me feel like I can also make things like that. From then on, I spent all my time at the library. Exciting times.'

Before long, he would read every volume in the set.

FALLING FOR SCIENCE

Though the library ignited Antipem's love of learning and inventing, his love of science came from his dad--Solomon Antipem, a science teacher--and on rainy days, a bottle and a funnel.

'We didn't have much in terms of science equipment but he did have a rain gauge,' Charles said. 'Every day when it rained, my dad would take me out to measure rainfall.'

This sparked his interest in the art of experimenting and collecting data. His mother, Cecelia Kyeremaa, was also 'very, very supportive' of his early interest in science, he said.

'Every now and then I would do a crazy experiment,' he recalled. Once, his mom helped him light a coal fire so he could boil a cassava to extract starch to build a prototype of a laser-based smoke detector.

'I felt like she was part of my team,' he said.

EXCELLING UNCONVENTIONALLY

Antipem did well in school but in an unusual way. He didn't take notes in class--rather, he would sit, listen and imagine what the teacher said.

'It's like when I read books, I would get lost in the moment,' he explained. 'I'd be in a trance, imagine myself in the story. So when the teacher explained in class, I could imagine it. Atoms or whatever, I imagined, and it became very difficult for me to forget.'

In high school, he earned the nickname 'crazy scientist'. While other students followed class schedules, he spent most of his time in the lab, creating and experimenting. Initially, he paid a price for it.

'They sacked me from science lab,' he said. 'In senior high school, they said, "He's not a serious student. Let's take him from...