By Mohamed A. Jalloh
As longtime readers of my writings know, my lifelong mission is to empower fellow native Sierra Leoneans, in particular, and the rest of the world, in general, with knowledge – with the goal of making the world a better place for all good people.
Pursuant to my mission, I hereby wish to bring to Sierra Leoneans the following heart-warming news about Sierra Leone, which will uplift their spirits:
September 1, 2026, marked a historic day for all patriotic Sierra Leoneans when the United States Patent & Trademark Office here in America, granted a patent to two native Sierra Leoneans, Rodney Kuhn King (shown in the photo below), and his daughter, Ecy Femi King, for inventing the Fractal Grid.
Specifically, the patent is granted for “METHODS AND RELATED DEVICES FOR STORING AND ACCESSING DATA USING MULTI-LEVEL FRACTAL GRIDS.”
So, why should patriotic Sierra Leoneans be proud of the accomplishment of these two native Sierra Leoneans?
The answer is that the potential for Fractal Gridding to transform the way information is organized and retrieved globally cannot be overstated.
Which raises the naturally-arising question:
What is Fractal Gridding?
According to Kuhn, Fractal Gridding “is a visual tool to organize information in a brain-friendly manner.”
Who is Kuhn?
Rodney Kuhn King is a native of Sierra Leone who attended the famous Prince of Wales School at Kingtom in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he distinguished himself by being recognized as a Head Boy in the Sixth Form.
Kuhn attended Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, from 1976 to 1980. He graduated with a Second Class, First Division degree in Civil Engineering. One of his lecturers at FBC, who has remained his mentor, is Dr. William Fitzjohn, also an alumnus of the Prince of Wales School.
Notably, in a testament to the academic legacy of Sierra Leoneans, a young William Fitzjohn, while he was a Sixth Form student at the Prince of Wales School, won a coveted National Scholarship to pursue a PhD in civil engineering at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.
Currently, Dr. Fitzjohn – another of the very many trailblazing Sierra Leonean quietly making Sierra Leoneans proud globally – is a well-respected senior civil engineer in the USA.
Other notable Sierra Leoneans who have brought honor to our native country include:
Prof. N.A.W. Cox-George
Dean, Faculty of Economics & Social Studies, Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone
https://thepatrioticvanguard.com/a-tribute-to-professor-n-a-w-cox-george-of-sierra-leone
Mr. Musa K. Suma
Managing Director, Sierra Leone Produce Marketing Board (SLPMB)
https://www.thepatrioticvanguard.com/a-tribute-to-musa-khalil-suma-1942-2007
Upon graduation, Kuhn worked as a civil engineer for 5 years at Techsult & Co. Ltd., a firm co-founded by Prof. Kosonike Koso-Thomas, Dr. Jack Garber and Prof. B.B. Ibrahim – all of whom were faculty members at Fourah Bay College.
Significantly, Kuhn credits Prof. Koso-Thomas as “an inspiration for hard word work, intelligence and perseverance.”
At Techsult, Kuhn became the first director of the Techsult Computing Center, a subsidiary of Techsult.
At the same time, Kuhn taught an introduction to computer programming course for final year engineering students at FBC, in addition to teaching a course in Mechanics and Structures in the Engineering Dept. He also taught Pure Mathematics in the Mathematics Dept.
In 1985, Kuhn was awarded a scholarship to pursue a Masters in Infrastructure Planning degree at the University of Stuttgart in Germany. In a departure from normal routine, Kuhn, who ranked as the top student in his graduating class, was offered an opportunity to proceed directly to the PhD program, instead of first returning to his home country.
He thereby became the first student in the Infrastructure Planning program to be accepted in the PhD program at the University of Stuttgart.
Following his graduation, Kuhn lectured for ten years at Bell College of Technology in Hamilton, Scotland.
In 2003, the King family – Kuhn, his wife, Nina, and daughter, Ecy, who was born in Scotland – emigrated to the U.S.A.
Upon his relocation to America, Kuhn taught Business Strategy at the International Technology University in San Jose, California, to post- graduate students.
In a move that would lead to his defining accomplishment, Kuhn became an entrepreneur in California, where he invented the Fractal Gridding method in 2006. He received venture capital funding of $400,000 from a consortium that included Silicon Valley and other venture capitalists.
However, due to Kuhn’s insistence that the Fractal Grid remain a Sierra Leonean-identified invention, instead of a Silicon Valley invention, he did not continue with the collaboration.
This demonstrates Kuhn’s well-established patriotism towards his native Sierra Leone. In particular, it is a testament to Kuhn’s commitment to putting Sierra Leone positively on the map of the world.
It is a goal which his daughter, Ecy, has enthusiastically and successfully embraced.
For example, Ecy wrote a Sierra Leone-named booklet, Una Kushe, that is used to train teaching assistants in managing a classroom. In addition, Ecy wrote and illustrated a Fractal Gridding comic book titled Puffy’s Party that was distributed at Carnegie Mellon University in commemoration of a milestone event at the Computer Science Dept.
Ecy has also written a book, Bit by Bit, that was published by Stanford University Press. It is important to note that she accomplished this feat as an undergraduate student.
Finally, as a Harvard Fellow, Ecy is completing another Fractal Grid comic for the Digital Thriving project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
When I asked Kuhn to point out his professional mentors, he singled out Prof. Kosonike Koso-Thomas, a well-known polymath – an expert in art, writing, mathematics and engineering – whom he credits as “an inspiration for hard work, intelligence and perseverance.”
In 2023, Kuhn told me, the two-Kings – Kuhn and Ecy – visited Prof. Koso-Thomas at his house at Wilberforce in the hills overlooking Freetown’s iconic beaches. Prof. Koso-Thomas himself had placed Sierra Leone on the academic map during his undergraduate studies by earning a first class bachelors degree.
In an expression of the respect that he had for his former mentee, Prof. Koso-Thomas took Kuhn and Ecy to his art room containing all his art work. He then asked Khun to choose any artifact from his collection of paintings for Kuhn’s own collection.
Not surprisingly, the reliably patriotic Kuhn chose the equally patriotic Prof. Koso-Thomas‘ painting that memorialized the tragedy which occurred in Freetown on August 14, 2017.
On that day, following 3 days of constant rainfall that unleashed mud and debris on the city, 1,141 Sierra Leoneans lost their lives, more than 3,000 were left homeless, and hundreds of buildings were destroyed, due to the unfortunate neglect of the lessons of a changing climate for Sierra Leone.
As patriotic Sierra Leoneans feel rightly proud of the accomplishment of our two fellow native Sierra Leoneans who have brought glory to Sierra Leone, I humbly end this heart-warming story with a hopeful message from Kuhn.
It’s a message that fellow Sierra Leoneans would hopefully take as an urgent call for action to the people of Sierra Leone to take a long overdue step on the long road towards restoring our once uniformly great country to its preeminent role as a beacon of hope to the rest of Africa:
“Everyone can be a genius innovator and polymath (a person who is an expert in multiple fields). Fractal Gridding is a key to unlock that potential.” – Rodney Kuhn King, inventor of the Fractal Grid.
© 2026 Mohamed A. Jalloh