Sociolingo highlights Woody Plants of Western African Forests:A guide to the identification of all the woody plants (c. 2,250 species in 740 genera) of the forest region of West Africa called ‘Upper Guinea’, between Togo and Senegal. Upper Guinea is one of the world’s most important centres of biodiversity, from the mountain forests of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, to the lowland evergreen, and semi-deciduous forests widespread also in Ghana and Ivory Coast...[continue reading]
"...Tashanda a company founded by Nyasha Manyonda sources products from both disadvantaged artisans as well as well established Zimbabwean brands.The company also designs its own products under the brand name Afrobag using the skills of self-employed artisans such as batik artists, natural bead jewellers etc...By showcasing all these works we are able to improve our product range and create an additional retail platform for our producer partners..."-Company Website
Zibusiso Mkhwanazi is about to give something back to his home town.The executive chairman and financial director of e-business consultancy Krazyboys Digital is building an entrepreneurship school for poor students in Vosloorus, east of Johannesburg...[continue reading]
Omar Farjac discusses the need for Machine Tool plants:When a part or component of the plants fails or breaks down during plant operations, then the whole factory/plant's production ceased, spare parts had to be ordered from whoever built the factory in the first place. This was a common decapitating problem in our country.photograph courtesy of washington.edu
Somalia had paid a major price by depending on foreign companies to supply the core spare parts and the basic components to smoothly run the nation's production factories. Although Somalia had managed to buy some Manual Milling and turning machines, but the factories spare parts demand was always higher than the supply or the know how capability for the major parts was never there and could not be manufactured in our country...[continue reading]
From StartupsNigeria:711football.com is a football platform where Nigerian football fans meet to discuss and share views on football. Launched in June 2008, the site is gradually becoming Nigeria’s hottest destination for football news and entertainment from all over the world including the Nigerian Premier league.The site features league tables, fixtures and player details for both the English Premier
League and Nigeria Premier League in the “match centre”, aggregates football news from some Nigeria newspapers in “media talk” and football pictures and videos in the “gallery”...[continue reading]
How will public broadcast change in a world of pocketable projectors?
What content can you carry? What can you access in real time? What sized/kind of audience, and what environment is optimal for consuming what kind of content? Breaking news? Major sports event? Romance? Porn? A micro-movie theatre standing on every street (and bar) corner, waiting to setup and service your needs?...[continue reading]
The NYTimes reports on the rise to prominence of SA wines:I want to tell you straight out that South Africa, of all places, is one of the greatest sources for moderately priced cabernet sauvignon on the planet today.I suspected this before, but after the wine panel tasted 25 South African cabernets recently, I can say it unequivocally, without the usual hedging and qualifications...[continue reading]Tanzania next?
From NewInt. Katy Simon reports:...the Kipepeo Project (Kipepeo means butterfly in the local Kiswahili language) enables farmers to make about US$20(in a good week) from selling the pupae, compared to 25 cents before the project started...
The majority of butterfly farmers are women. Looking after the caterpillars is a job that they can fit in between their many other domestic chores...[continue reading]
Seed Initiative award winner Guiding Hope wishes to:...to expand their production of organic, fair-trade honey from the remote Adamoua savannah to reach international markets and to become Cameroon’s largest exporter of high quality beeswax, as well as building an international market chain for the community-owned soap- and candle-making businesses....wants to increase wax export sales to 66 tonnes of organic wax per year by 2012, increase wax prices by 30% by increasing quality and diversify their current honey sales market...[continue reading(pdf)]
Appfrica reports on VDS Vision 200, a collaborative project which will result in a "...prototype line of cars expected over the coming years. The final version, a hybrid plug-in car weighing less than 600 kilograms, has an energy-equivalent of 1.2l/100km and a 20%-reduction in lifecycle costs compared to current standards...",VehicleDesign. A Makerere University team will be responsible for the power electronics and data networking systems.
Africa Science News reports on a Kenyan initiative which:...involves looking for special genes or plants that can be used to manufacture medicine, industrial products and food supplements for commercial purposes.It is estimated that biodiversity products generate an annual revenue of 600 billion dollars, yet despite her richness in biodiversity, Kenya is missing out due to ignorance on the part of stakeholders especially the local communities.Bio-prospecting —exploring and sampling the ecosystem for commercial purposes— is not common in Kenya due to lack of research and product development, poor technology, uncoordinated information gathering, lack of skills and awareness...[continue reading]
The company plans to produce more than one million tonnes of the natural fertilizer by 2015 for both local consumption and export...When production in the plants starts the company located about 100 km from Arusha will be in a position to export the much needed fertilizers to partners states of the East African Community as well as the South African Development Committee (Sadc).....they have been mining and processing the Minjingu ore into powder for direct farm application over the years.The company specializes in producing and exporting Organic Hyper phosphate+ in both powder and granule forms...[continue reading]
Kenyatta University which is now enjoying the ISO certification, is among the few universities that have benefited from the open view business systems solutions at Access Kenya. In an interview with the Africa Science News Service, the Access Kenya Project Manager, Muchiri explains Open-view Business Systems as the various network services provided by Access Kenya." We mainly deal with in cabling and all aspects of networking including server installations and we've actually gone into high levels ICT services provision as a one stop solution provider."...[continue reading]
...is one of Africa's largest soda ash manufacturers and employs over 450 people in Kenya. The company recovers trona from one of the purest surface deposits in the base of the Rift Valley and converts it into sodium carbonate (soda ash).via Nubian Cheetah
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From Reuters:A newly formed company in Ivory Coast, aims to build buses for West Africa's thronging public transport routes, a company official said on Thursday.
Abidjan Transport Company (Sotra)...its vehicles are designed and built specifically to withstand Africa's potholed roads and extreme weather."First of all we want to meet Abidjan's needs ... but also we want to expand into the regional market. We want to produce vehicles for our neighbours like Mali, Burkina Faso and Senegal," said Delmarc Diomande Deli, head of quality control at Sotra. The buses are designed and built in Ivory Coast by Ivorians, Sotra said. Iveco will make the bus chassis and send them to Abidjan for assembly by Sotra...[continue reading]
There is an emergent, yet disconnected, technology community growing in many of the major African cities. The digital connection happens, primarily through email lists or message boards, and from time-to-time there are local physical meet ups, like the recent surge in BarCamps and other non-traditional meetings. What isn’t available is a place to meet that is always available and is made to engage and grow the community...[continue reading]
Afrigadget reports on Kitenengla Glass a company that supports more than just the bottom line with its encouragement of local artists and waste recycling:Anyone who has been to Kitengela Glass near Nairobi will instantly recognize the works of art made from recycled glass, metal and other materials. Stunning works by local artists support a huge community of people and beautify gardens, offices, institutions and homes...Creating art from recycled glass takes a huge amount of energy. The glass recycling factory produces tiles, windows and other items, fueling it with used oil, butane gas and electricity. But now they are exploring the use of human biogas...[continue reading]
Proving once again that the best ideas are often the simplest, 21-year-old student/inventor/entrepreneur Emily Cummins has designed a brilliant portable solar-powered refrigerator that works based upon the principle of evaporation. Employing a combination of conduction and convection, the refrigerator requires no electricity and can be made from commonly available materials like cardboard, sand, and recycled metalThe most fascinating aspect of her work is the open source hardware aspect-the propagation of her product without direction:
She made six versions during the initial phase of production and helped make more than 50 during the trip where locals in Namibia nicknamed her “The Fridge Lady“. The refrigerator has since rolled out in Zambia, Namibia and South Africa and Emily believes thousands more may be in use as the design passes from community to community through word-of-mouth...[continue reading]
Victor Matioli's organic pumpkins are plump, his coriander aromatic and his spinach "very soft, sweet, and tasty". His half-acre farm is a former rubbish dump in the heart of east Africa's biggest slum.So arresting is the sight of tall sunflowers growing amid the rust-coloured shacks and dirt paths of Kibera that Matioli and his fellow growers have had to put up a "No photographing" sign to allow them to work in peace...[continue reading]via African Path
According to the Yemi Ogunbiyi(Chairperson of DMT), the biogas plant is designed to process and convert sanitation waste into cooking gas and other gases that could be used to generate electricity at its site on the Lagos-Ibadan Experssway.Watch related overview video on DMT here: Thanks Pragnya!
[...] The plant, which was developed with technical assistance from DMT‘s foreign partner, Environmental Resource Management Foundation, will commence production in 2009. [R]aw materials for the plant would be sourced from DMT’s mobile toilets, abattoirs and septic tanks...[continue reading]
They are developing a solar-powered refrigeration system for commercial cold-storage applications in off-grid and partially electrified areas of developing countries. The system uses clean, quiet, solid-state technologies such as thermoelectric cooling modules and solar photovoltaic (PV) panels...[continue reading]
Growing coffee and banana forms the economic base for most of the small-scale farmers in much of Uganda and the surrounding highlands of Rwanda,Burundi, northwest Tanzania, and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo...The crops complement one another in terms of socioeconomic benefits to growers and farm families. Bananas provide permanent food and income security, doubling as a primary food and cash crop, and providing a modest but continuous cash flow throughout the year. Coffee gives a cash boom twice a year, helping farmers acquire funds for more expensive items such as infrastructure, farm inputs, transport equipment, and large social events...[continue reading(PDF)]
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Kolawole Adebayo is in the process of creating a new market linking cassava producers and goat keepers through the introduction of a simple drying technology that will turn cassava waste into goat feed. As a result, the project will increase farming incomes and reduce carbon dioxide wastes by eliminating the need to burn cassava waste.
Saidou Ba(watch video below) of Mission GoorGoorlu (a vocational school)which is producing Bio Fuel for outboard motors-they wish to introduce along an affordable and environmentally friendly mode to transport agriculture products to market. The project uses traditional vessels powered by a locally produced biofuel outboard motor fueled by processed indigenous oil seeds.
Africa Biofuel which looks too cultivate and sell anindigenous oil-seed for biofuel from the Croton tree , creating a new, sustainable cash crop for smallholder farmers in Tanzania
William Kisaalita whose idea is "...to build a renewable energy-powered milk cooler for small holder dairy farmers in Uganda. The cooling system will be used by small holder dairy farmers, who lack the means to keep their milk harvest fresh overnight..."William discusses his project here:
All told, South Africans have plowed more than $8.5 billion into the Sub-Saharan region, the U.N. estimates, making the country the biggest investor there. Ever since South African Breweries pioneered the African beer market—and then went on to become the global titan known as SABMiller—South African companies have led the way on risky turf. Johannesburg cellular provider MTN was one of a handful of companies to defy conventional wisdom and prove that Africa could be a huge market for mobile phones...[continue reading]In an attendant comment, Coldtusker more importantly highlights the rise of Non-South African, Sub-Saharan multinationals:
Whereas the focus is on S.Africa and its firms, there are other gutsy firms out there... north of S.Africa. Equity Bank (Kenya) are in Uganda and S.Sudan & has grown micro-finance lending exponentially. I&M Bank (Kenya) purchased 50% of a struggling Mauritian bank. Many Nigerian banks have expanded across Africa including UBA Ecobank (a pan-W.African bank) headquartered in Togo is competing all across Africa. East African Breweries (Kenya) dominates the E.African beer market (& beat back SABMiller's foray in Kenya & Uganda) Kenya Airways is SSA's pre-dominant carrier. Unlike S.African & Ethiopian Airlines, KQ is privately owned & listed on the NSE & USE. Bakhresa Foods/Millers are dominant in Tanzania and Uganda. Dangote's firms (Nigeria) is mulling regional expansion. Mabati Rolling Mills of Kenya caters to E,C and S.Africa. Safal Group (headquartered in Mauritius for tax purposes) is in 15 African countries. ScanGroup of Kenya is expanding to Central & West Africa. Olympia Capital (Kenya & Botswana) has various interests in S.Africa.
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