"A view of Africa and Africans with a focus on entrepreneurship, innovation, technology, practical remedies and other self sustaining activities.".....Emeka Okafor
In southern Africa, people with virtually nothing could now become farmers. Villagers in Botswana and Zimbabwe already domesticate and farm the Mopane Worm, an edible caterpillar. Both rural and urban folk relish these caterpillars. Harvested from woodlands throughout south-central Africa, and high in protein and fat, they are also an important food for the rural poor. Now, caterpillar farming can be a household enterprise...[continue reading]
With this post I’m going to explain why I think that Open Design is going mainstream now (here I’m talking about Open Design on broad terms). With these posts I don’t want to say that it is now considered popular and no more controversial, but that it is not underground anymore: it is now finding its place inside the collective imagination.Since I started researching Open and Collaborative Design practices in 2005, things have changed a lot: there are no more isolated projects but a whole ecosystem is emerging through the weaving of collaborative networks. And since the past year, few signs have been showing clearly that more and more institutional or famous organizations and people are interested in Open Design (or at least in bringing collaboration and crowdsourcing in the design process). If it’s not really mainstream yet, it’s not underground anymore for sure...[continue reading]
The Multimachine is one of Pat Delany's most well-known tool designs for machine shops in impoverished communities. Photo courtesy of Pat Delany
There may only be a handful of people in the world who have thought as deeply as Pat Delany has about making cheap tools. Delany, from Palestine, Texas, designs hand-powered tools made of recycled materials. His heavy-duty drills, lathes, saws and other tools can handle the same tasks as modern power tools, but they equip carpentry and machine shops in off-grid and impoverished communities. To achieve their low-tech precision, his designs fuse century-old technology, present-day scrapped auto parts, pipe, concrete, wood and a relentless commitment to the bottom line...[continue reading]
...no two pieces are exactly alike. From the use of African wax fabrics, to the unique choice of colors and patterns, Yinka’s creations clearly reflect her Nigerianheritage and culture. She integrates vintage treasures and recycled materials to create pieces that are sustainable and fashionable as well-Proprpostur Blog
A string of Treehugger pieces speak to the symbiotic relationship between sanitation,waste and biogas:
First an overview of how the Katwekera Tosha Bio Centre processes human waste into biogas-
The centre has toilets and bathrooms on the ground floor -- the toilets are connected to a bio-digester, with a dome-shaped holding tank in which biogas is produced. Raw human waste from the toilets flows in, and bacteria break it down, releasing methane gas which collects at the top of the domed tank."A pipe is then plumbed into these toilets and connected to the first floor, which is where the cooking area is located," says [center manager David] Kihara. The gas is piped to collective stoves one floor up -- and is usually sufficient for community members to cook on throughout the day.
In a situation where there are no sewers, and human waste is already being carted off and essentially dumped, the idea of establishing simple, easy to maintain systems for composting large amounts of human waste is basically dynamite.Watch related video after the jump
The ideal cereal for arid regions, sorghum is attracting renewed interest for its resistance to drought and its potential for producing biofuels.It is not easy for sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) to rival the performances of imported cereals such as wheat and rice. Yet this tropical grass, also known as ‘coarse millet’ and used as cereal and forage, has its share of plus points. Extremely robust, sorghum has a high tolerance for heat and drought, a factor that makes it one of the two most popular cereal crops in arid regions, the other being millet. Its genome sequencing, carried out in 2009, is expected to lead to a better understanding of the origin of this valuable property...[continue reading]
In Daily Dispatches:Nairobi founder Mary Cherop Maritim, on what spurred her to create Cherubet Foods:
Image courtesy Branden Brannon
The idea came one night, I was working as a civil servant for a senior official, and that night I didn’t leave the office until after 8pm. On the way I home, I was thinking my family would be hungry, what will I feed them? I used to pre-cook corn and beans and freeze them to eat anytime. That night when I got home I found these beans in the freezer, I fried them up, and soon my hungry family were all eating. Suddenly I thought, wait a minute, can’t this be a good business idea?
Google has announced that it will be launching a startup incubator in Cape Town, South Africa, called Umbono. The incubator aims to support the local tech ecosystem in South Africa by offering local startups access to seed capital, Google mentorship, and angel investors.Umbono will focus on web and mobile-based startups building solutions to local problems, which also have regional appeal, in an effort to help them “transform their ideas into companies”, according to Google SA country manager Luke Mckend. Fittingly, “umbono” happens to be the very Zulu word for “vision” or “idea”...[continue reading]
This documentary shows the process of designing a bicycle for and with Ugandan bicycle couriers, known as Boda-boda. Filmed primarily in Uganda, it shows the realities of current day East Africa, from the chaotic streets of Kampala to the inside of gritty mud-thatched homes in rural Hoima. In Uganda many residents use cheap, clunky bicycles for their primary means of transportation. Through a unique collaboration between an American designer and Ugandan couriers, a new bicycle design was conceived and a prototype was made. The designer then traveled to Uganda to meet the couriers and to have the bike tested and critiqued. Would they like it? Or is it back to the drawing board? How can you use your talents and skills to help the poor of the world?
Beside Open Hardware, there is another bottom-up movement that’s slowly growing: the world of do-it-yourself (DIY) and microproductions of craft and fashion design products. There are many people designing and creating handmade product, clothes, bags and accessories, most of them consider it as an hobby, but an increasing number of people are trying to make a living on it, whether alone as an hobby (DIY) or in small groups trying to start small enterprises (microproductions). It’s not a new trend actually: the DIY culture dates back to the ‘60s and ‘70s, and craft has always existed though it was almost replaced by factories and large-scale manufacturing since the IndustrialRevolution (at least in the most developed countries).
While at first sight the DIY craft world seems not to be related too much with the Open Culture, at least traditionally, it is now increasingly learning and adopting tools and processes from it, including new technologies into fashion like hardware as well (like the open hardware LilypadArduino, for example).
Themba Dlamini from Swaziland with his baby vegetables
Themba Dlamini would be the first to admit that starting his own business has been far from easy. But since taking the bold step of buying the farm on which he once worked, the young Swazi farmer has watched it grow and seen it win a contract to supply baby corn, beans, zucchini and sugarsnap peas to a major South African supermarket chain. He has also managed to tap European markets and his business now employs more than 100 people. One of Dlamini’s staff is Gugu Happiness Maphanga, who works in the pack house. “I’m the first in my family to have a job”, she said.
Income Generating Units (IGUs) include Baraka Highland Honey, Baraka Workshop, Baraka Shamba and Baraka Shop.The aim of IGU's is to generate income for the College to ensure its sustainability.Income Generating Units not only support the college's mission by providing the ground for skills training and research but also produce quality products at competitive prices.
After Ousama Abushagur's(a Libyan telecom executive) request for the parts needed to integrate with Libya's network was turned down by Huawei, which built Libya's existing cellphone infrastructure, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar gave Abushagur the "several million dollars of telecommunications equipment" he needed to build his rogue network and he set off for rebel-occupied Benghazi.Abushagur's team then joined forces with Benghazi engineers and "fused the new equipment into the existing cellphonenetwork, creating an independent data and routing system free from Tripoli's command," according to the Wall Street Journal report.Once the new network had been established, Abushagur's team was able to get its hands on the database of phone numbers that had previously been routed through the system in Tripoli and re-route them through the new system, called "Free Libyana." Calls are now handled via a satellite controlled by a company called Etisalat based in the United Arab Emirates.Watch related video after the jump
Monica Miri is an entrepreneur of her own making. She set out to start a business in a field she knew nothing about and succeeded. So how did she do it?This self-starting woman began a trucking operation known as Workmanship Ltd, a freight and transport company in Kenya. As a sensible and practical entrepreneur Monica took her time to build the business she wanted. Not one to rush in unprepared, she considered her options, did thorough market research and carefully planned her steps.
She covered all the business basics by speaking to people already in the industry, learning how trucks operate, discovering what it’s like to be a driver – everything and anything to get a thorough sense of what it would be like to manage a company and all its aspects in the transport trade...[continue reading]
As the Libyan Civil War rumbles on the ill equipped anti Ghaddafi forces have resorted to making and adapting their own weapons systems with mixed results. C. J. Chivers of the NYTimes reports:
Bryan Denton for The New York Times
In cheerful and crisp English, Adel Sanfad presented his new weapon, which was mounted on a welded frame to the back of his jeep near the front lines in eastern Libya. “These used to be for airplanes,” he said. Then he added, in a flash of pride that was undercut slightly with a wince: “But we modified them.”
Behind Mr. Sanfad was a pod of air-to-ground rockets, of the sort used by attack aircraft to fire on targets below. His system was fully loaded and armed, ready to go. In the past 10 days, several of these repurposed aviation munitions, recycled for new lives as truck-to-ground weapons systems, have appeared at the front, where they have been fired repeatedly by the Forces of Free Libya, as the rebels hoping to unseat Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi call themselves. In this case, the weapon was a freshly made accoutrement to Mr. Sanfad’s life as a technical – a mobile combatant on an open truck, roaming the highways of the Libyan desert while mixing civilian and military equipment to wage a conventional war...[continue reading]
Romulus "...a first seed-stageventurefund focused on the African continent.Will invest in the brightest, most entrepreneurial young Africans, with a particular focus on the diaspora...Investors, this is no ordinary venture capital fund. This is a franchise for the future. By coupling the world's best with the world's largest opportunity, we are confident we will produce the return investors seek..."-website
Livemint reports on the overlap between neo-Artspaces and a blossoming hacker culture.This is coupled with the deepening interest in open source hardware and DIY engineering:
Called Jaaga, it’s a modular, makeshift, multi-level metal space run by Freeman Murray, a former computer programmer and entrepreneur, and artistArchana Prasad. The structure is designed so that it can be dismantled easily and moved elsewhere at short notice. Their official website even details a succinct five-step process to do just that.
Inside, bent over their laptops, typing lines of “code”, the five-member team of the Bangalore-based start-up HashCube wouldn’t be out of place in one of the city’s several glass-wall buildings. But seated as they are on moulded plastic chairs in Jaaga’s collective space for “technology and art”, something seems different.Watch overview video the jump CitySignals@Jaaga from Saurabh Agarwal on Vimeo.
while in New Delhi:
The founders of 9 Circuits in Delhi. Priyanka Parashar/Mint
What Jaaga is attempting to do with software, four engineers in Delhi are hoping to replicate for hardware.Nandeep Mali, Harry Samson, Priya Kuber and Pronoy Chopra are the founders of 9 Circuits, an online store that hopes to kickstart the country’s fledgling do-it-yourself (DIY) hardware community. Hardware engineering includes everything from building prototype vehicles to experimental gadgets. The store sells an entire range of programmable Arduino Boards (the engineering foundation for everything from a robot to a GPS module), hardware components, sensors and spare parts.
On your website you ask the question, "How can designers make low-cost products without factories?" Have you found an answer to this yet? Is it something we could accomplish on a large scale?
I'm currently working on around 15 techniques for low-tooling, small-scale manufacturing of durable, beautiful goods with low labor inputs (and thus, makeable anywhere in the world). I'm publishing my results on Humblefactory.com, and on the Humblefactory youtube channel. One of the most promising so far is a method for making bent bamboo furniture - chairs, tables, lamps -- with a clean, modern aesthetic, and using only materials grown within my Seattle city block. These same materials - or analogs like them - are available anywhere in the world outside of the arctic.
Maad Fruit-The fleshy insides of the Maad fruit is usually eaten raw. The juices are sucked from the flesh and the remaining pit spat out.It is very difficult to separate the very fibrous flesh from the stone/pit, whether mechanically or by the application of heat. This makes Maad especially challenging to preserve, but not impossible.
and spicy preserves:
Preserves
Many of our preserves have mild and spicy versions. For the latter, we are self-sufficient in chilipeppers. This spice grows well and perennially in West Africa, so it is easy to scale up cultivation as needed. It also has a long shelf-life in its dried form.No synthetic ingredients are used in any of our products. Small-scale farmers' groups supply our lemons, used to extract the juice from for its natural thickening and preservative properties.
We are bound to create a pool of Highly skilled African citizens in the software development industry to enlarge the labor income share thus contributing in a more equitable distribution of income.
One of our end goals is to create a community of African programmers that share and transfer knowledge among themselves and to future generation of programmers.
Unlike the traditional revolving fund groups that merely saved money, theirs is an active investment group. Registered as Unathi Investment Limited, the 21-women in the group, mostly in their late 30s, are drawn from all sectors, ranging from finance to information technology to legal
For more context on Chama initiatives take a peek at this video after the jump
In openp2p Massimo Menichinelli reports on the significance of Fablabs:
Valentina Kofi, from Fab Lab Ghana, makes her first circuit board.
The main importance of Fab Labs (and hackerspaces and so on) is that they are enablers of Open and Collaborative projects. A whole community benefits from them, not only single makers: therefore places like these should be always at the core of business models for open and collaborative communities. Education, consulting and other services are the most common business models for makers, and they need them as well for producing and making their project at the same time. A community of makers that self-organizes could start microcredit initiatives (within and from outside the community) that specifically target, enable and incubate new projects with technologies, knowledge and marketplace access trying to enable a whole ecosystem instead of few projects without connections.
"...Kachile is dedicated to professionalizing the artisanalsector in West Africa and commercialize its products in Europe and the United States while guaranteeing fair pay, decent working conditions, and endowing the artists with marketable skills for their futures. Kachile will generate income through direct and online sales of artisanal products. We focus on providing access to global markets and capacity building..."
We were pleased to receive an email from IROKO Partners, owners of NollywoodLove, about their partnership with Youtube so Nollywood fans can watch over 400 Nollywood films for FREE! This is exactly what we have been waiting for, the digital distribution of Nollywood films so you our readers get to enjoy African arts and culture in an even more intimate way. Check out Jason Chukwuma Njoku’s story, founder of Iroko Partners. When you are done, head on to Nollywood Love’s channel to watch your free Nollywood movies. Nigeria’s actresses and actors also have their own special channels on the NollywoodLove page so be sure to check it out.
Fixing broken wells, installing solar panels, and repairing bicycles -- these are just some of the hands-on skillswomen in developing countries are learning to boost their earning power while helping them help their communities, and improve their natural environment. Three different nonprofit programs, working in India, Jordan, and Uganda, among other places, are behind the inspiring results recently reported in the media
...a marketing platform which enables local Nigerian businesses to reach their customers. It works by sending an email to subscribers about discounts of between 30 – 70% on goods and services in Lagos. The subscribers can then print out a coupon and go enjoy the discount at the Merchants shop, while paying the discounted price. QluQlu hopes that users can now discover new things in the city while enjoying discounted prices. It also hopes that by serving deals of interest to mainstream Nigerians it can grow an appreciation of the internet as a medium of doing business among mainstream Nigerians.
Image via Wikipedia
