AFAM Healthcare Medical Group

Ifeanyi Obiakor

Founded by Ifeanyi Obiakor the AFAM Comprehensive Healthcare Medical Group runs a multi-specialty medical facility.Their fields of practice include:
-Cardiology
-Endocrinology
-Obstetrics/Gynecology
-Dentistry
-Cardiothoracic Surgery
-Gastroenterology
-General surgery
-Neurology

System D Design

In Pattern & Texture:

courtesy of Sandrine Dole

The basic theory of System D is that it is a manner of responding to challenges that requires one to have the ability to think fast, to adapt, and to improvise when getting the job done....Système D is a common term used in Central Africa referring to adaptable, handy solutions. I found these images on Sandrine Dole's website, a french designer who lived in several countries in Africa, interesting images, patterns embodying the Système D!

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DJs, Cloud Manufacturing, and the Need for Modular Open Hardware

TED Fellow Dominic Muren writes:

Recently, Humblefacture (and our lab The Humblefactory) have been exploring the potential of open source product design as a part of a more equitable, appropriate manufacturing. Chris Anderson at Wired Magazine has also been interested in this sort of thing for a little while; A recent article of his profiled a number of small-scale producers using open design and flexible manufacturing to make niche products that can compete with the big boys. It's great to see a big voice like Chris behind the open hardware movement (even better, his money is where his mouth is, with the success of his DIY Drones company). Even so, we can't help but think that the future that Chris describes doesn't go far enough. Where "the next industrial revolution" he describes has an open, but still top-down manufacturing structure (finished objects are still made by single manufacturers, just smaller ones, more flexibly) we imagine something entirely new. With a few tweaks, we might have manufacturing with unprecedented accessibility and specificity. You might call it cloud manufacturing, and it could be the most important step toward true locally appropriate manufacturing.

Cloud computing is already reinventing the way that teams of people coordinate around the world to edit documents, create movies, and coordinate projects. The open source software community long ago recognized the value of eliminating physical proximity as a requisite for collaboration. After all, the more minds working on a piece of software, the faster it gets made. Sourceforge is a great example of what a distributed community can accomplish by working on small pieces together.

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Building a Bush Studio

Inhabitat reports:

Brandon is a native of Orlando who decided to move to Africa to get some hands-on experience building affordable homes after a stint at a design firm in the states. Now, instead of sitting in a cubicle, he spends his time developing affordable housing schemes and putting them into action. He’s studied a variety of practical building techniques, and gets fully involved in every stage, enabling him to get a feel for the most sensible approaches.

Rogers has two key structures that demonstrate his efforts. The first is his rural studio or as he calls it, his “bush studio” which is located in the eastern region of Ghana on a plot of land that he acquired to practice his skills on. The building is made out of stone and mud, which originally triggered many raised eyebrows. In Ghana and throughout Africa, there is a stigma associated with building with mud. Many locals told Rogers that it connotes poverty, but he decided to stick to his hope of building a structure using materials indigenous to the land.

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Make Faire Africa contd.

Chika Oduah's report on the recently concluded Maker Faire Africa:

Maker Faire Africa 2010 from Chika Oduah on Vimeo.

Casely-Hayford

Joe Casely-Hayford with his son, Charlie Photo: Ben Weller

"...The Casely-Hayford ethos represents a unique expression of freedom created when conformity threatens identity, or convention restricts spontaneity; we fuse this expression of the free spirit with the very particular gestures of English sartorialism. The House aims to distil a multitude of ideas into a simple pure entity: innovation through tradition..."-website

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Tarzan Marine Transport

In Grandiose Parlor:

Tarzan - A marine service provider: that provides car ferry and passenger transportation services in Lagos,Nigeria.

LoftyInc Incubation

"...LoftyInc specializes in venture incubation & early stage funding in West Africa. We've seeded three companies so far, one in Ghana and two in Nigeria. We recognize the need to alter the traditional VC model to serve this emerging market..."-website

Remaking Manufacturing With Robotics

Rodney Brooks on robotics and Industrialization 2.0:

Beloxxi Biscuits

Business Day reports on Beloxxi a biscuit and sweet manufacturing company whose founder Obi Ezeude recounts the early days:

“We installed our machines and by late 2006, we rolled out. January 2007, we hit the market. In one month, the demand overshot our capacity. People were waiting two/three months to get our products...continuing "“No matter how bad things are, we must eat. There is therefore every reason for the food and beverage sector to do well,"

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True African

"...True African is a Value Added Services Provider, a Communications and Information Technology company in Uganda and Kenya.As an information services provider (VASP), True African maintains a range of information categories that it provides to the mass market mainly through partnerships with mobile telecommunications companies. In Uganda, our most popular information service is SMS Info, available on 7197 for MTN, UTL and Zain Uganda. In Kenya, SMS info is available on 2197 on Safaricom and Zain Kenya..."-website

Being a Woman Entrepreneur

In WaTradeHub Joe Lamport reports:

Felicite Yameogo

About 25 years ago, Felicite Yameogo began working with women’s groups that make shea butter in Burkina Faso with a vision to start her own company. She had learned business management at university in Cote d’Ivoire and she saw the opportunity upon her return to Burkina.But she did not start in shea at first. Her first business involved making uniforms for Burkina’s national guard and other services.“Shea was more interesting,” she said. “This was something we make here, and I thought we should be producing shea products ourselves rather than using imported products. I had these ideas and I know it seemed odd to people at first. They didn’t think it would work.”...[continue reading]

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GMBHnews

In the words of founder Charly Omer, GMBHnews:

...is a mobile site creation service. You just add your blog urls ( +rss feed url ), and it generates a mobile optimized version of your site. the publisher can then copy and paste the so generated code snippset in his blog for redirection to his mobile site and that's all someone need to do to enter a market of more than 3,3 Billions mobile devices out there ( By 2,011, 10 billion wireless devices will dot the Planet–five billion mobile phones and another five billion wireless devices ).
The mobile generated sites are optimized for almost every mobile device platform (symbian, iOs, Android, PalmOs, cell phones....etc) and publishers can monetize their mobile traffic with adsense for mobiles and keep all their revenues.
At the front end and from your mobile device as an internet user people can use the service as a news reader/discovery dashboard, everything has been kept to the minimum necessary to give peoples a great experience reading news/blogs on their mobile devices, while spending less as possible on bandwidth.

First Atlantic Semiconductors Datalogger device

Nkpuhe reports on a product release by First Atlantic Semiconductors founded by TED Fellow Ndubuisi Ekekwe:

The FA1050X a rugged, high-performance embedded microelectronics system with broad range of applications. It is engineered for complex measurements and control functions. It incorporates intelligent control engines that guarantee reliability under extreme conditions, and remote sensing.Light weight, GSM interface, and easy operation make FA1050X your ideal data-acquisition system, for gas, temperature, humidity, light, and wind. The core is a proprietary Flexible Arithmetic Engine implemented as an embedded microelectronics system. It is reconfigurable and adaptive, with interface to computers and cellphones. It is protected, partly, by US Patent No. 60/922,260.

Continue reading

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DIY Kenya @ Maker Faire Africa 2010

A DIY Kenya wrap-up of MFA10:

Paul, Stefan and I all really enjoyed rubbing shoulders and swapping stories with our fellow makers (at the Faire and in the bars and breakfast rooms of the hotel where many of the makers also stayed) indeed, it was great meeting all those enthusiasts of African-born innovation who came to see the show. After a quiet first day – due to the draw of the Constitution celebrations in nearby Uhuru Park – the second day of the faire was very, very busy with hundreds of visitors passing through.

Paul Granjon of Bloc enjoys a demonstration of Alex’s Sisol-twining machine

The faire took place in the central green of the Nairobi University campus in the city centre. The maker stalls were sited, much like a festival village, in white open-faced tents with pointed roofs. The sky was overcast and a little grey but the mood of the faire was bright, colourful and celebratory – and there was innovation everywhere!
Among the maker exhibits were machines for conservation of fuel or water (and so of special interest to me and the DIY Kenya project) labour-saving devices, fashion accessories, examples of self-sufficiency and income generation projects, home décor products. craft workshops and interactive art displays. There were also several collaborative artworks and workshops taking place around the faire.

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Fre3dom and 3D printing

Kidist Zeleke a Singularity University fellow on Fre3dom a 3D printing initiative to promote self-sustaining communities

More here
via Shapeways

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Afrotropic Cocoa Processing

BNET reports on Afrotropic:

...a cocoa processing/manufacturing firm in Ghana which makes original, high-quality cocoa products for export and the local market, using local raw materials. The company's exports generate much-needed foreign exchange for the Ghanaian economy, while the locally sold products serve as superior substitutes for imported cocoa products, and reduce the import foreign exchange burden of the national economy

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Quick Hits

A need for more regional airlines in west Africa-Reuters
Time is ripe for African innovators-Russell Southwood
The VC-free startup-Dale Dougherty
Brics are redrawing the economic landscape Africa-FT

Symbiotic

Symbiotic provides software platforms that enable:

"Business process improvement, monetisation of content, publishing of content, self learning environments through e-learning, brand awareness, operational efficiency"their services include "mobile billing, messaging platforms, mobile marketing, content management, mobile portal design, payment gateways, hosted services – SAAS (software as a service),"

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• A Mobile Payment Trifecta in Kenya (whiteafrican.com)

Film Financing In Nollywood

Dayo Ogunyemi's timely and lucid presentation of investment opportunities within Nollywood:

Film Financing In Nigeria Opportunities And Challenges

View more presentations from dayo2000.

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We Alone on Earth reviews Making Do

We Alone on Earth reviews Steve Daniels Making Do covered earlier. A favorite excerpt states:

"microenterprise efficiency comes not from the individual firm, but from the dynamics among similar enterprises in collective geospatial clusters. In fact, through clustering the jua-kali economy displays a critical property of ecosystems that Western economies lack: it produces virtually no waste."
Daniels illustrates how large industrial centers have arisen spontaneously in Kenya, capable of processing local scrap into useful goods. Everything is recycled and re-used. Items as complex as welding tools and metal lathes are made locally from improvised scrap. These tools can then be used to process more scrap, and to improvise even more tools, creating an organically growing and self reproducing means of production.
"... the linkages among microenterprises form dense networks of activity. Take a stroll through Gikomba, and one can’t help but think of the informal sector as a living organism with intricate systems that form a concordant whole."

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Bridge Intl Academies

Ignacio Mas reporting in Next Billion:

Bridge International Academies is a new for-profit primary school franchise with big plans. It aims to build and manage low-cost schools, the kind that cost $4 per kid per month. And it hopes to build lots of them, ramping up eventually to one new school launched per day, first in Kenya, then elsewhere in Africa. Since its founding in 2007, it has opened 12 schools in Nairobi, through which they are testing their assumptions and refining their model.

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Coiled Vases

Pattern & Texture reports on the Coiled Collection:

The collection is made using locally-sourced materials and consists of flower vases, pots and a light. In designing a new platform, the goal was to only implement locally found materials in order to keep the process possible and accessible. Coiled consists of a series of interior accessories that finds inspiration in traditional ceramic vessels – earth wares constructed by hand coils of clay.The intricate beadwork of the Siyazama women, in both pattern possibilities and color, is reminiscent of the inherently scaled skin of a serpent. Each piece is made by encircling the serpentine beaded coils, like the natural movements of a boa constrictor, into the resulting form of a unique interior accessory.

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The Importance of Frugal Engineering

Vikas Sehgal, Kevin Dehoff, and Ganesh Panneer write in Strategy & Business:

Image via Wikipedia
The central tenet behind every frugal engineering decision is maximizing value to the customer while minimizing nonessential costs. The term frugal engineering was coined in 2006 by Renault Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn to describe the competency of Indian engineers in developing products like Tata Motors’ Nano, the pint-sized, low-cost automobile. Companies such as Suzuki paved the way for the development of low-cost automobiles, but there may be no better example of frugal engineering than the Nano, which will allow millions of people with modest means to reliably drive their own car. The Nano is not — like so many other low-cost vehicles — a stripped-down version of a traditional, more expensive car design. Like other newly engineered products selling well in emerging markets, ranging from refrigerators to laptop computers to X-ray machines, it is based on a bottom-up approach to product development.

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Agbena

Founded by Henry Addo:

Agbena is an online community for Ghanaian Techies scattered across the globe.This community provides a common ground for Techies to share ideas and experiences,communicate and connect with each other.It also presents a platform for employers to post job offerings for targeted group of people."

Kiosk Culture by DK Osseo-Asare

TED Fellow and blogger DK Osseo-Asare founder of the Low Design Office speaks to Beyond Profit:

Photo courtesy of low design office

One area where Osseo-Asare hopes to use collaborative architecture is through the “kiosk culture” of Ghana. Informal shacks and buildings made of reused materials line Ghanaian streets, home to microenterprises and microindustry. While these buildings are technically illegal, they are an integral part of Ghanaian culture and daily life. “People expect ubiquitous micro-enterprise, [like] the ability to buy water or mobile phone credits from a vendor at virtually any point in the city,” Osseo-Asare says. Why then, are city planners trying to wipe out such structures, and replace them with factories?
“Kiosk culture is an existing model for survival in the city that can also become a bottom-up strategy for advancing local fabrication and sustainability,” Osseo-Asare says. Instead of eradicating kiosk culture in the growing city of Tema, Ghana, he and his team are working to build stronger, more environmentally friendly microstructures. Their first project is “bamboo lifecycling”: growing bamboo in an urban setting, and using it to build temporary and mobile infrastructures. After use, discarded building materials can be used as low-cost and low-impact cooking fuel.

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AMGECO a Ship Repair company

Bankelele reports on AMGECO a ship repair company whose:

Courtesy of AMGECO

...dry dock ship repair facility,is one of its kind on the East Coast of Africa.The company has a long history in East Africa, and has gone through ownership and management changes over several decades, but the core investment is the Lloyd's certified giant facility & dry dock which carries out all manner of ship repairs including steel & metalwork...[continue reading]

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A Framework For More Sustainable Electronics

TED Fellow Dominec Muren of Humblefacture writes:

...rather than throwing away the order that we have spent so much energy to impose on the matter in electronic devices, it would be better if we could somehow disintegrate and re-integrate these devices into new devices, with new, more useful functions. After all, in most cases, electronics are discarded because they are out of style, or outmoded for a particular task. Perhaps your phone won't receive pictures, or use polyphonic ring-tones. Maybe you want a touchscreen. In other cases, electronics can be "broken" when their mechanical parts like hinges or screws break, even though their electronic guts are still perfectly intact. Finally, sometimes something like a screen or battery will break, leaving the balance of electronic parts -- and all the value embodied in them -- still working.
In any case, disposing of these electronics represents a disposal of value, and a loss of embodied complexity -- and energy.

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Yellow Masai

Yellow Masai is a

"comprehensive Online Destination Travel Agency dedicated to the East Africa Region" Their " location and team enables them to bring a local yet modern approach to travel booking taking advantages of technological trends to make it easier for travelers to connect and book travel deals with more hotels, tours and regional airlines."

via MTAA

Africa Unsigned

In Afrinnovator, Pim Betist founder of Africa Unsigned on the need to fund African Musicians:

There is a huge diversity of authentic amazing styles of African music, created and played by a young generation of African artists. I see this generation as being neglected and mistreated by the traditional music industry. Less than 1% of the global music market is accounted by the African continent. If we leave out South Africa we are left with almost zilch. I believe in the potential of The New African Sound.
Pim Betist over Africa Unsigned from sociaal ondernemen on Vimeo.

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