A Ghanaian-American-fibre optics inventor, Dr Thomas Owusu Mensah is advocating for a high-speed rail system for Ghana.
Dr. Owusu Mensah who is currently the President and Director of Georgia Aerospace Systems Manufacturing, says he is already collaborating with the Chinese government to develop a high-speed rail system for Ghana.
According to him, the proposed high-speed rail system would link northern Ghana to the southern part, using the fibre optic technology to optimise travel time at about 200 miles per hour (mph).
That, he said, would mean travelling from Tamale to Accra would take one and a half hours.
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“The high-speed rail system would go a long way to help out rail system. I have already started collaboration with China to develop the high-speed rail system in Ghana. I have all my proposed projects and will if it is taken in good faith, it will help develop the country” he said.
Dr Owusu Mensah was speaking exclusively on Adom FM’s Morning Show “Dwaso Nsem” Monday.
The project, he noted could be done in three years at a cost of US$6 billion and it would provide jobs for about one million people during the construction stage.
Dr Mensah, who together with three other people, pioneered the manufacture of fibre optics and communications systems said the firbre optics helps make data transmission on the Internet faster and carry more data than copper cable without interference.
Dr. Mensah said he was able to utilize fiber optics to create a guidance system for missiles that incorporated a small camera which was installed within the missile’s nose.
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The fiber optics missile guidance systems he indicated were capable of working while traveling at the speed of sound and were utilized in Patriot missiles and other guided weaponry used by the United States in the Gulf War.
The technological achievements made by Dr. Mensah in his career have led to a great deal of official recognition for his work.
Dr. Mensah, a chemical engineer, may not be widely known in his own homeland of Ghana, but he is hailed for elevating fiber optics technology from mere laboratories to the manufacturing scale in the United States.
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He won a French government fellowship in 1974 to do graduate studies in Chemical Engineering at the Montpelier University in France.
He attended Adisadel College, Cape Coast, where he obtained his ‘O’ and ‘A’ Level certificates in 1968 and 1970, respectively.
He holds a Ph.D in Chemical Engineering from the Montpelier University and a certificate in Modelling of Chemical Processes from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.