Get Excited and Make Things!

In Recreating Tampa:

We are in the middle of a manufacturing revolution. For those involved in this revolution, and those who watch culture along the fringes, this is old news. Mainstream America and policy makers (think about the equally clueless African counterparts), however, seem to be completely unaware of the revolution taking place.

If the desktop computer drove the rise of the Internet, what will drive the rise of independent/boutique/small batch manufacturing? The 3D printer is as good a place to start as any.

More here
Image A Fab@Home fabber
via Fabaloo

E-fulusi

In 2009 Finextra reported on Efulusi's mobile wallet application:

Monitise says it will integrate its mobile money manager platform with E-Fusili's mobile wallet technology to create financial accounts that can be operated from consumer handsets....The E-Fulusi mobile wallet technology currently powers the Mobipawa and ZPESA services, the first two mobile banking services in Tanzania. The firm has worked closely with the national central bank to establish a regulatory framework for mobile banking in the country.

More here
Read related E-fulusi article here

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• Mobile phones become pocket banks in poor countries (textually.org)

Digital publishing

Crisscrossed on the twinning of local content and digital publishing:

Arthur Attwell, who runs Electric Book Works, based out of Cape Town, believes the mobile phone is game changer for digital publishing. “I think print on-demand has got a massive future for Africa, and developing countries in general, because of the way it caters to people with low cash flow and who just need a book right now.”

“I think that we will see an incredible growth of digital publishing in Africa over the next few years, we’re in the process right now of really just laying down the infrastructure that’s going to make that possible.”

More here

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• Amidst eBook Frenzy, Print-On-Demand Is Quietly Thriving (huffingtonpost.com)
• Adventures in self-publishing (thefword.org.uk)

High Speed Wifi out of Garbage

Another one for the 'maker' chronicles, Boing Boing reports:

Volunteers in Afghanistan -- both locals and foreigners from the MIT Bits and Atoms lab -- have been building out a wireless network made largely from locally scrounged junk. They call it "FabFi" and it's kicking ass, especially when compared with the World Bank-funded alternative, which has spent seven years and hundreds of millions of dollars and only managed its first international link last summer.

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• Jalalabad's Fab Fi: How Junk Was Turned Into a High-Speed Wireless Network [Wi-Fi] (gizmodo.com)

Sand Bag Architecture

Dezeen reports on the construction of a school in Chimundo,Mozambique partly by the use of sand bags:

A framework of reinforced concrete makes a permanent bearing structure in the closed room. The framing allows for cheaper more temporary materials as in-fillings. We experimented with sandbags in the east and north facade, where they functions as thermal mass in the winter, while an extension of the roof prevents sun exposure during summer...The shaded south facade has a glass-bottle wall for letting in light and keeping dust out. Bottles give an aesthetic quality, and make a good alternative to expensive windows.

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FabLab Soshangave

via Makezine making and fabbing of circuit boards, robots and more at FabLab Soshangave:

Tshepiso Monaheng builds electronic circuits

Tinkering with PICOcricket lego



Rodney brings a robot to life

The Power of Open Data

Tim Berners-Lee inventor of the World Wide Web reveals the spread and potency of open data :

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Enersa Renewable Energy

The AIDG blog profiles Enersa the fastest growing solar solutions company in Haiti:

Enersa’s product line includes solar street lighting, residential and commercial solar systems, and solar chargers for smaller devices like cell phones and lamps. They initially settled on LED streetlights as a flagship product after seeing Japanese company Nichia’s white LEDs in action on Montreal’s streets. The big question for them at the time was what would they use as an energy source if they wanted to port this technology to Haiti. Haiti’s electricity infrastructure was notoriously unreliable in urban zones and nonexistent in rural areas. However, the country’s location in the sun-drenched tropics and the relatively modest energy requirements of LED systems made solar an attractive option for the Enersa team, if a suitable price point could be reached.

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Startup Funding contd.

Hash returns to the state of startup funding:

Both the Crowdfund and VC4Africa initiatives are excellent steps in the right direction, as they both provide platforms that allow less-knowledgeable investors (of tech in Africa), and deeply involved African tech investors alike, to get involved without too much risk at one time. There remains one issue to be solved though, and that is finding the entrepreneurs to invest in...[continue reading]

Quick Hits

Idesign creates rich internet applications.
A natural fibre forum for  ‘under-used’ coconuts etc gains a foothold.
Innoson unveils and indigenous car-All Africa
White African on how Moneygram is tackling mobile payments

Tiffany's Botswana Operation

In the WSJ:

In a windowless factory in this African village, Tiffany is teaching more than 80 workers to transform raw diamonds into gems for Tiffany engagement rings...Sitting at workstations arranged by task, bruters round the diamond pieces. Polishers add top and bottom facets, looking at magnified images of their diamonds captured by a lens near the whirring polishing wheel.On the factory floor on a recent afternoon, a worker learning to make facets walked over to a Laurelton-designed training machine to double-check an angle. When he set the diamond in the protractor, a display flashed 35.2 degrees. Over the whir of grinding wheels, Mr. Hanna nodded in approval.

More here
Read related Benin Epilogue post on Africa's diamonds
Photo courtesy of the WSJ

Mahiga Rainwater Court

Architecture for Humanity reports on a rainwater harvesting project within Mahiga Hope High School:

The Rainwater Court is a full-court basketball court with an integrated rainwater collection and UV purification system with solar panels for the water system and night lighting in areas without electricity. The full-court configuration has a 4,850 sq ft playing surface covered by metal roof and guttered to collect an estimated 90,000 liters of water per year. The building incorporates 25,000 liters of rainwater storage, with UV purification.

More here

Sustainable Agriculture - Aquaponics

The NYTimes reports:

Rob Torcellini says...“There’s alternate ways of growing food,” “I don’t want to push it down people’s throats, but if someone’s interested, I’d like to show them you can do this with cheap parts and a little bit of Yankee ingenuity.”
It’s all part of a home experiment he is conducting in a form of year-round, sustainable agriculture called aquaponics — a neologism that combines hydroponics (or water-based planting) and aquaculture (fish cultivation) — which has recently attracted a zealous following of kitchen gardeners, futurists, tinkerers and practical environmentalists...[continue reading]

Image courtesy of the NYTimes

Garage Biotech

Kevin Kelly on the emergence of DIY Biotech. Garages in Nairobi,Accra Lagos  et al. take note:

One day, we knew, biotech would become so easy and so cheap that two guys in a garage could hack life in the way kids hack code. That day is now here. Exhibit A is this biohacking lab in a garage in Silicon Valley. Assembled from used equipment the kit includes two clean cell-culture hoods, an incubator, two robot sequencers, and lots of software packed into a suburban garage. The guys are screening anti-cancer compounds.

More here
Image courtesy of Synthesis

Alkebu Films

Founded by Petna Ndaliko Katondolo and Yehudi Van de Pol, Alkebu:

...was initiated to develop the production of inventive, mindful and authentic works in the resourceful worlds of audiovisual and new technology...it aims at producing challenging work by exploring the narrative possibilities of creative imagination, documentary, feature films, music videos and art based films.

Maker Pro

In Makezine Dale Dougherty on the next step in making:

 What I see happening is that makers are discovering more opportunities to go into business, to go pro. It is becoming easier for makers to design, develop, and distribute products as well as offer services. It doesn't mean they will succeed but they can enter the market more easily...these makers have moved from being amateurs to professionals. Some of them start their own companies, while others are hired by existing companies to introduce new ideas and techniques. It's akin to open source developers doing work for free on open source projects, yet many of the best ones end up starting companies or going to work for companies like Google who need their expertise.

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MaP Kibera

"...Map Kibera trained 13 youth, one from each village of Kibera, in the tools and techniques of OpenStreetMap. Over three weeks, assisted by local GIS professionals, the youth collected data with GPS units and edited their map using open source software. Since we were newcomers to Kibera, this was made possible through strong local partnerships with Kenyan organizations Carolina for Kibera and SODNET (Social Development Network). We also engaged widely with the technical and international development communities in Nairobi, building relationships for the project and involving participants from the wider society..."-website

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• Map Kibera Is An Initiative To Create A Digital Map Of Kenyas' Biggest Slum (techmasai.com)
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• Meet the Wikipedia of the mapping world | Victor Keegan (guardian.co.uk)

Why Open Collaboration Spaces Matter:Ihubs,ILabs etc.

Bill Zimmerman writes in 27 Months:

"...The idea behind the iHub—and other new technology labs cropping up across Sub-Saharan Africa—is to put a group of exceptionally smart “doers” under one roof, provide them with a top notch work environment, generate ideas at a rapid pace, filter out the dead ends, present the best candidates to investors and produce viable businesses (and success stories) along the way. The end goal isn’t to generate wild profits for the iHub itself under an exclusive brand, but rather to grow a stronger technology community that hackers, researchers, policymakers and VCs are naturally drawn to..."Watch related iLab video about the 1 percent club here

Open Source Design Competition

Open Source House (OS-House) has launched a competition:

...to design a sustainable, flexible and locally embedded family house for a specific location in Ghana. The modular construction should be suitable for local implementation and affordable for its future owners. The winning design(s) will be built in Ghana.

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Cyber-City

233Tech reports on The Ghana Cyber City:

The $40 million Ghana Cyber City (formerly Ghana Technology Park) is designed to facilitate incubation of innovative firms, manage offshore IT and business process outsourcing ventures, and seek to create 5,000 jobs in 5 years. GCC will also provide high tech office space and a Tier IV data center. We were planning to start on a small-scale basis but it our prospective partners encouraged us to scaled it up right from the conceptual stage.

More here

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Wana Energy

Wana Energy's "...main focus is to service comprehensive needs of her customers in organised homesteads, light commercial industries, and private homes through distribution, installation and maintenance of bulk and cylinder Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG)..."
via BidNetwork

The New Face of Innovation-Ushahidi

Image via CrunchBase

In the NYTimes:

...Ushahidi represents the new frontier of innovation. Silicon Valley has long been the reigning paradigm of innovation, with its ecosystem of universities, financiers, mentors, immigrants and robust patents. Ushahidi comes from another world, in which entrepreneurship is born of hardship and innovators focus on doing more with less rather than on selling you new and improved stuff.

More here

Sustainable Bug Architecture

New Scientist reports:

In the heart of Africa's savannah lies a city that is a model of sustainable development. Its buttressed towers are built entirely from natural, biodegradable materials. Its inhabitants live and work in quarters that are air-conditioned and humidity-regulated, without consuming a single watt of electricity. Water comes from wells that dip deep into the earth, and food is cultivated self-sufficiently in gardens within its walls. This metropolis is not just eco-friendly: with its curved walls and graceful arches, it is rather beautiful too.
This is no human city, of course. It is a termite mound...[continue reading]

Image courtesy of the New Scientist

Jean Pierre Nshimyimana-Water Engineer

Jean Pierre Nshimyimana initiator of the LifeEngine Clean Water Project, is developing a business that will provide clean water and green energy technologies and environmental engineering consultancy to provide superior services, designs, knowledge, and green energy solutions to community-based initiatives in Rwanda-Legatum

Jean Pierre Speaks at Harvard from Sean Clauson on Vimeo.

MyRadeo

Founded by Aneto Okonkwo:

MyRadeo is a microblogging service for music. It helps you share and discover songs with your friends. "It's like Twitter for songs or Pandora if your friends pick the songs for you"

Speaking during a Tech Masai interview Aneto stated:

I initially started using it just with my friends, and now many of their friends use it regularly which is very encouraging. Its been exciting to take a simple idea and evolve it over time based on feedback and the way people use it. In the next few months, we plan to improve our integration with Facebook, expand the mobile experience, and eventually even launch a desktop version to integrate with iTunes...[continue reading]

Real E-Books

Ghtech profiles Ghana Real E-Books:

...on the platform, you can basically select story books (by the way, all books are by Ghanaian / African writers) of your choice and read them. A little window (mimicking the size of a story book) opens as you select a book to read .

More here

AfroChic

"...AfroChic is an online clothing store born out of a vision to clothe Africa from within...AfroChic represents affordable style. When you buy AfroChic, what you get is clothes with simple but classy designs which you can wear to work, special occassions or as everyday wear.

Each outfit is made to suit the unique tastes and lifestyle of 1 modern AfroChic girl (learn more about AfroChic girls below). Each fabric is chosen to match a specific design, and often also, for the meaning behind the patterns. So don't be surprised to find AfroChic dresses with a "culture tip". We hope you'll enjoy discovering these tips as much as we did compiling them; and love wearing our clothes as much as we loved making them..."-AfroChic website.
via Afrch

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Kauffmans Labs and making Entrepreneurs

From Vivek Wadhwa's Techcrunch article:

The education and training of entrepreneurs is something that the Kauffman Foundation has been researching extensively. Over the last six years, it has invested around $50 million on academic research to understand what makes entrepreneurs tick and what policies are most conducive to entrepreneurship and to construct data bases to permit analyses of these subjects...Kauffman (which has a $2 billion endowment) is investing heavily in an ambitious new program called Kauffman Labs.  This aims to dramatically increase the ability of small businesses to become big businesses. The Labs program is built around a novel idea: that highly motivated individuals with “scalable ideas” can be recruited to be entrepreneurs and to be made successful, by surrounding them with a network of other experienced entrepreneurs; sources of money; and mentors. The goal is to educate entrepreneurs and surround them with a powerful network. This is like a Y Combinator on steroids.

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Makeka Design Lab

The award winning architectural Makeka Design Lab founded by Mokena Makeka seeks:

...to create a climate where previously disparate media of action and modes of representation are used to create functional holistic design solutions with provocative cultural meaning.The broader purpose is to also advance new understandings about how cultural specificity fused into design

Ihub Nairobi Debuts

Hopefully the first of many Africa-wide Ihub's opens in Nairobi,Kenya.

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Trashy Bags

From the Trashy Bags website:

By encouraging people around Ghana to collect millions of discarded plastic sachets and paying them a collection fee for each batch of a thousand that they collect we are not only helping to clean up the environment but also providing casual and supplementary employment to people who otherwise would be out of a job or below the poverty threshold. In addition we are teaching people that the sachets can have an inherent value of their own and should be saved rather than discarded indiscriminately.
Once received we wash the sachets three times before disinfecting and drying them and sorting them into different types before storage, ready for sewing together and assembling into unique and useful bag designs such as brief cases, backpacks and tote bags.

Eva Fund

In vc4africa:

eVA Fund is dedicated to mobilize capital and experience in the Netherlands/Europe to invest in small and medium sized African internet related companies. The fund focusses on development in terms of capital and business development support, i.e. knowledge, experience, access to proven business concepts/applications, and network.

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Bokkie Shoes

From the Design Indaba blog:

Stomping firmly on the South African earth, Bokkie Shoes is launching their playful new shwe-shwe range of shoes for adult – and little – girls. Bokkie Shoes are produced in a limited-edition and assembled by hand.

Kikikamanu

From the Kikikamanu  website the 'Arm Kandy' company:

Each of our creations come in 5’s, so apart from your bag, there are never more that 4 others created. This is an exciting opportunity to constantly create unique pieces for you.
Kiki Kamanu Arm Kandy® creations are made of 100 percent leather, ostrich, snake or alligator skins. Each bag is lined with a vibrant coloured fabric and comes to you with a matching dust bag. Like our client who insists on the highest quality, we do not produce our bags with synthetic materials.

Sack Gardens

HopeBuilding reports on a welcome new twist in gardening:

The project involves planting vegetable seedlings on the sides of earth filled sacks that are placed on rooftops or doorsteps. Each family receives one to three sacks filled with earth and 6,000 families are now cropping tomatoes, onions, kales or spinach. One single sack can contain 50 seedlings of kales or spinach and 20 tomato plants."With this project, nobody, especially among the womenfolk, has any excuse to be idle," says Agnes Ndalo, one of the beneficiaries. "The traditional housewife who would spend hours on end in a neighbour's house in fruitless banter is no longer here. Women are busy tending their sack gardens, replacing dead seedlings or watering them."

via AllAfrica