Continuous and Additive Innovation Systems

In his book Why Industrial Revolution By-Passes Africa Hilary U Nwokeabia contends that:

...with private and un-rewarded knowledge bearers innovating in isolation and dieing in the same fashion, the continent has experienced "continuous but non-additive innovation system" as against "continuous and additive innovation system".

The question could be: How do we nurture, replicate and propagate "additive innovation systems"? From strengthening informal industrial clusters to building on the successful barcamps and makerfaires. Pervasive bottom-up efforts are important in order to initiate a critical mass.

Thatchroom

Thatchroom is a forum:

...where “lost” African food is reborn and rediscovered. Here, we finally record for posterity those cuisines and culinary practices that sustained Africa, the origin of all mankind,at ThatchRoom, we celebrate the place of food in building an African identity strong and confident enough to engage the world on its own terms.

Their intriguing Granny Project is:

...a community exchange program designed to:
1. Help Africans in the Diaspora learn to cook authentic and traditional African meals from EACH OTHER and from Africans on the continent
2. Rediscover our forgotten foods: Because we stopped celebrating Millet and Fonio and took up biscuits and cheese. Nothing wrong with that of course but food is a powerful vehicle for culture and culture is what separates us from other animals.

Solar from Scrap

CNN highlights the work of Solar Light Fabber, Evans Wadongo:

In 2004, while attending a Kenyan university for agriculture and technology, Wadongo found his answer. He was fiddling with a dorm experiment involving the timing of LED (light-emitting diode) Christmas lights when it struck him: The environmentally friendly light source could be used to light rural homes.
"I knew it would have to be sourced by the sun to be useful to people in rural areas," he said, "but [I] had never seen a solar panel small enough for individual homes."
Then, while walking home from visiting a friend, Wadongo stumbled upon a broken-off piece of a discarded solar panel. With it, he was able to light a small number of LEDs. His project -- Use Solar, Save Lives -- was born...[continue reading]

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Gikomba market Jua Kali

Myweku reporting on the Gikomba market Jua Kali:

Gikomba is a daunting environment by any standards- mad man symphony from hammer on anvil beating metal into submission fills the air, good natured banter from hearty artisans fill the shacks which seemingly go on and on in a never – ending labyrinth. Blue, red, green wares are stacked, or parked in prominent displays; nearly anything imaginable from simple gardening tools to complex agricultural machinery and household furniture are manufactured here from scrap material.
All products here are made from recycled material. Empty drums are salvaged and cut into metal sheets which are used to make barbeque grills or drainage pipes to capture rain water. Old motor bike tires are used to make wheels for burrows. Old tin is fabricated into pots and pans.

More here
Photo courtesy of Myweku

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Improving Biogas Digesters

In Afrigadget:

...We believe that biogas from cow dung holds huge promise for rural and urban areas as a cheap source of energy that can be turned into domestic use or even business anywhere in rural Kenya….eg. pasturizing milk, making yoghurt, running fridges, generators, hammer mills for grinding corn, cooking, baking, heating water, running machines… and reducing your carbon footprint.I have recently become the latest guinea pig for Dominic Wanjihias experiments … and it has been quite a learning experience

More here

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Formalizing the Informal, Matatu Private Placement

In Bankelele, formalizing the informal:

There was a small advert in the Nation this week for a private placement to raise Kshs 600 million ($7.5 million) as investments in the public service vehicle (PSV) transport business.The promoters, PSV Investments, say they have already investment in PSV’s commonly known as matatu’s through transport companies, savings & credit societies (SACCO’s), and individual owners. They are selling 6 million shares at 100 shillings each, with a minimum investment of 5,000 (~$62) for individuals and 100,000 (~$1,250) for institutions, and the Vice Chairman is Dickson Mbugua who’s often on TV defending the Matatu Industry as an official and a spokesman. It opened on May 17 and closes on July 3...[continue reading].Watch related video on Kenya's Matatu video

AkiraChix

ICTworks profiles Akirachix "a group for ladies with interest in Information Technology.":

Solar Sisters

Worldchanging on Solar Sisters with a cautionary note:

Solar Sisters is addressing the same issues as the impressive Indian Barefoot Solar Engineer program. That program's success depended both on a clear understanding of women's roles as energy managers and on a smart approach to financing. That second part seems to be the one thing missing from the Solar Sisters project. Before Solar Sisters really takes off, I have a feeling that they will take the lessons learned from their early clients' community financing arrangements and build them directly into their business model.

More here

Lagos Keys

Red-i reports:

The Pinnacle Point Group has selected SiMS as the property sales management platform for Lagos Keys, their high-profile leisure and residential development in Nigeria’s commercial hub. As one of Africa’s fastest growing economies the demand for exclusive residential property is soaring. The Lagos Keys development is set on a tropical peninsula with six kilometres of water frontage and will include a private marina with moorings for 100 vessels.

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Developing a Startup Ecosystem

In a piece relevant to the startup scene within Africa, Sarah Lacy of TechCrunch writes about the opportunity of Indonesia :

I think what Indonesia (replace with Africa) could use is something in between the current state of no high-growth capital and the money that goes to countries like India and China: A Y-Combinator-style incubator that could help Indonesian entrepreneurs make sense of the pitfalls of modern startup life, including things like recruiting and managing talent, how to deal with Silicon Valley giants, how to make money online and when and when not to raise outside funding. The funding amounts and exits would be small, but a Yossi-Vardi-style angel could clean up where many classic VCs might crush startups under the weight of millions. Someone to coax these entrepreneurs as they develop organically, but not bind them to a Western-way of building companies. Someone local–or at least transplanted fully– who understands when all those Valley rules need to be modified or broken.

Continuing...

In the Valley, the ecosystem for starting companies grew organically over several decades, a luxury that China and India didn’t have. Those countries have entrepreneurs, they have tons of venture capital and big market opportunities—but when they got flooded with  American cash in the last decade, the ecosystem’s natural development accelerated, and the step of developing local angels and mentors was largely skipped. That’s the single biggest complaint I hear from entrepreneurs in these countries. Indonesia has a rare opportunity to develop a huge startup ecosystem in the right order.

More here

Bisila Wines

In Ladybrille:

Tapping into her African roots (Guinea),Bisila Bokoko founder of Bisila Wines describes the collection of wines as “a powerful mixture of the land and light. It is a passionate meeting between mother nature and the roots of the most remote memory.”

More here
further coverage in Fashionjunkii

Women Solar Engineers

Covered earlier an update video on the Barefoot Women Solar Engineers:

OnePage

Co-Founded by O O Nwoye, Onepage is "...a digital platform for creating, sharing and storing business/contact cards...take your OnePage to be your business card online. The link you put when you have a single place to put "your website" like on Facebook, Twitter, email signature or on a business card. That way, people can contact you wherever you are (Facebook, LinkedIn, Skype, email, etc)..."

Who's winning Kenyan Geeks or Nigerian Geeks?

Kenyan/Nigerian geek deathmatch? Bombastic Element writes:

...remember that debate back at ICT Works about 3 reasons why Kenyan developers are kicking Nigeria's ICT butt? Well, in the CNN report below, Christian Purefoy talks about a new generation of Nigerian geeks, who despite the country's power shortages have begun innovating around a population that's getting more and more comfortable and savvy with mobile technology. The clip also features Tunji Lardner founder of Wangonet and ACID

More here

Nigeria's Food Blogs

Nigerian food blogs come into their own. From the detailed Avartsy Cooking whose author attests that "food that I eat is usually spicy." To blog pioneer Alhaji's Groove whose deliciously visual creations now come with recipes. And over to the energetic My Kitchen and encyclopedic Spice Baby.
Image courtesy of Avartsy Cooking
Watch Avartsy Cooking video here:

Fashion Camp Nigeria

 Fah-Schyon reports:

Fashion Camp (FC), the brainchild of Nigerian UK based uber stylist and fashionista Arieta Mujay ,Biki John and others...was borne as a result of the lack of African fashion mentors and mentoring programmes in the fashion industry in Africa. According to Ariety, fashion is an art form that evolves and young talent needs to be nurtured and encouraged as a result...[continue reading]

This event follows a previous Fashion Camp like event called the Bold & Beautiful

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Two Publishers- Amadi Press & Walahi Books

Amadi Press:

"...publishes books, pamphlets, journals and magazines of special interest to Igbos in particular and Africans in general. Our hope is to record, celebrate and promote, in various ways and forms, aspects of authentic, traditional Igbo culture before they finish melting away..."

while at Wahali:

you can search and buy books. You can pay for the books online (with your interswitch ATM/Debit Card or VISA Card ), or offline by paying the total cost of order placed into our designated bank nearest you. You will pay to the bank after placing your order online. Choose bank account payment as method of payment.

School in A Box:A Guide to Creating Your Own Self Sufficient School

Via wikieducator from Teachamantofish:

'If financially self-sufficient schools are such a good idea , why aren't there more schools following this model?'.The short answer is that starting a financially self-sufficient school has always been too hard and too full of risks for most institutions to contemplate.
The SCHOOL IN A BOX Guide Series aims to make starting such a school easy, and reduce the risks involved to a mangeable level.

More here

The Opportunity of the Missing Middle-The Success of Equity Building Society

Dianna Games in Business Day:

IN 1993, Equity Building Society in Kenya was declared technically insolvent; in 2010 it is a fully fledged bank, listed on the Nairobi Stock Exchange and claims more than half of Kenya’s banked population as its customers.
In 2006 alone, its customer base grew 82,5% and its deposits grow 80% a year. What is the secret of its success? The innovative and efficient provision of financial services to low- and middle- income groups at a good price.
While the large local and international banks were doing what banks generally prefer to do — courting wealthy elites and multinationals — Equity ditched its unsuccessful mortgage financing business and focused its efforts on the “missing middle” of the market

More here

Tech Hub Nigeria

In ICTworks the founders of TechHub Nigeria state:

We are raising money from our pockets and from partner companies to build a physical tech hub that will be able to take at least 100 geeks at a time. This will allow techies who are constantly battling with power problem, internet subscription and computers to get started, and build stuff they have dreamed of. The hub will also provide facilities that will help them build business around their tech ideas and mentoring from best tech brains Nigeria have! In five to six months time, the tech hub should be ready.

Christiane King

Christiane King's "...collections feature designs that are strongly influenced by her life experiences. Her signature layered and textured look result from the combination of her traditional heritage with the western cultures she's been exposed to...Her garments celebrate the arts and crafts from her Ivorian culture,but also maintain very modern styles and silhouettes..."-website

Finding Innovation in Every Corner

In Design Observer Meena Kadri interviews Anil Gupta covered earlier:

Most models of development are centered on what the poor don’t have rather than what they have. Some position the poor at the bottom of the economic pyramid, but this does not equate to a lack of knowledge, values and social networks. I prefer to see the poor as a provider than a market — with their limited material resources driving knowledge-intensive, informal innovation. Through providing incubation and development support, patent and intellectual-property-rights assistance, marketing advice and microventure funding, we seek to support the creativity that already exists at the grassroots.

More here

Steps towards Desktop Manufacturing-Fab in a Box

Continuing our focus on Fablabs covered earlier We take a peek at a New Scientist article which highlights an effort to craft a Fab in a Box. Fablabs founder Neil Gershenfeld had come to the realization:

...that what FabLabs really need is to be able to make themselves. "The tools will have really succeeded when they can do that," he says.In a year or two, FabLabs will simply be made inside existing ones, Gershenfeld promises. "We'll still buy some components, like microcontrollers and stepper motors, but we'll make everything else."
A machine called MultiFab, created by recent MIT graduate Ilan Moyer, backs up that claim. Like RepRap, it is made from parts and materials costing just $400. It too can print plastic, but it can also wield milling and cutting toolheads to carve shapes in wax, cut vinyl, mill light plastic and wood, and carve out the conductive traces of custom circuit boards. The first thing the completed machine did was to carve out a circuit board to replace one of its own.

More here

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Escape3points - Eco Resort

At the eco-village resort Escape3points: 

...everything has been handbuilt,designed to fit harmoniously in with the surrounding environment,using appropriate technology including natural and recyclable materials. We use composting toilets and continue to explore different renewable energy resources and alternative methods to keep our place as eco friendly as possible

Quick Hits

An improved method for storing maize, Togo's main cereal crop.
Mechanical and electrical engineering services company Building Consultants Limited
Nigerian privately owned and managed incubator-Nextzon
OpenSys a Dakar based open source focused IT consulting firm founded by Karim Sy
Trigen a healthcare skills training and consultative company

Fledgling steps for Africa's Entrepreneurs

Two stories which speak to challenges and opportunities faced by African businesses as they spread their wings. The first one in the Economist talks about how an "African entrepreneur struggles for recognition in rich-country markets":

It used to be a badge of pride that we were the only African coffee brand in British supermarkets. Now I see it as shameful,” says Andrew Rugasira, the founder of Good African. He is bemoaning the fact that other African firms—in coffee and many other lines of business—have struggled to follow the trail blazed by Good African since it was founded in 2003.

While the WSJ profiles the blossoming of home-grown companies:

Foreign consumer-goods companies including Coca-Cola Co., Nestlé SA and Unilever PLC have been in Africa for decades without much competition from local players. Now, home-grown companies are expanding aggressively across the continent, eager to accommodate a growing middle-class among the billion-person population.
Among the most prominent of these consumer upstarts: African retailers such as Nakumatt Holdings Ltd. of Kenya, the top supermarket chain in East Africa, MTN Group Ltd., Africa's largest cellphone provider, and South African restaurant chain Spur Corp. Nakumatt has expanded into three neighboring countries while 348-restaurant chain Spur has opened in seven other African countries...[continue reading]

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Open Source Washing Machine

A Bricolabs project:

The open source washing machine project aims to rethink the way we wash clothes around the world, in accordance with economical, sociological, cultural and environmental aspects. Most of the people in this planet, mostly women, wash clothes by hand in harsh conditions related to poverty, lack of sanitation, water or energy.-website

Its details could include:

a $12 freeduino,which could replace the programmer in any washing machine, because it can manage the keyboard of the washing machine, it can manage the heat and pressure sensors of the machine, and it can manage all the hardware like heater, pumps or valves, and you could program your washing cycles by yourself“.

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Infoladies of Bangledash

Cory Doctorow writing in Boing Boing:

Bangladesh's Infoladies ride from village to village on bicycles, toting netbooks and mobile phones, and set up infobooths where they use net-gathered info to teach hygiene, help with childbirth, assist with crop problems, and so on. There's an army of them.

"An InfoLady's netbook is loaded with content especially compiled and translated in local Bangla language," says Mohammed Forhad Uddin of D.Net, a not-for-profit research organisation that is pioneering access to livelihood information

More here
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Encipher tablet

Interesting piece of hardware, Loy Okezie on the Encipher tablet computer:

Encipher announced that their ‘highly controversial‘ Andriod-powered tablet will be available only in Nigeria (for now) and starting at N55,000 ($399).
Update: 07/05 – The Encipher Tablet will be unveiled at the British Council, Abuja Rooftop Cafe on Saturday, May 8, 2010 at 2pm.
Update: 17/05 – The Encipher Tablet codenamed “The One” will be unveiled at Barcamp Nigeria 2010 on Saturday, May 22 at the CITS, University of Lagos, Akoka, Yaba.The news of the Encipher Tablet was broken last week and has already gotten the attention of huge tech and mobile review blogs around the world such as VentureBeat and GigaOM’s JKOnTheRun blog.

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Ker Thiossane-Melding Art,Design and Hardware

Ker Thiossane (Senegal) in association with open hardware advocate Joel-Noel Montagne(fr) is creating a teaching suitcase (Valise) that would allow for the portable instruction of:

...interactive sensors-channel technology; real time signal processing;the interfacing of those signals with multimedia and mechanical actuators, robotic outputs or light. The unit will allow hackers to reconstruct and simulate thousands of different interactive combinations themselves.

Following the TED Fellows

From the TED Blog:

Mohammed Bah Abba courtesy of Rolex Awards

Experimental, organic, and polymathic, the TED Fellows program continues to provoke, inspire – and defy convention. The initiative was inspired by the success of 100 groundbreaking Fellows from around Africa at TED Global in 2007, which included Alexandra Graham, cofounder of Lagray Chemicals, the first vertically integrated pharmaceutical manufacturing company in West Africa;Mohammed Bah Abba, innovator behind the pot-in-pot cooling device;Ainea Kimaro, biogas evangelist, whose work has reached from Rwanda to Tanzania; and Segeni Ngethe, founder of Kenyan e-commerce pioneer Mama Mikes...[continue reading]