Cairo's Rooftop Gardens

AL Masrya AL Youm reports on the debut of rooftop agriculture in Egypt:

Photographed by Valentina Cattane.

“For two years I desired to start my own private urban agriculture in my garden,” says Mariam Ali, one of the first users involved in the initiative. “When I heard about the site, it really inspired me to start and get on with it because I felt I wasn’t alone. It also just makes life so much easier because there is so much uncertainty concerning what to do during the early stages of construction."Ali is three months into her home garden at her residence, where she grows carrots, tomatoes, eggplants, spinach, lettuce, zucchini, okra and molokheya, as well as some vertical plant walls. The site puts a strong emphasis on purely organic setups, but everyone will be welcome as the founders refuse to “isolate anybody who already has such good intentions.”

More here
via CityFarmer

The Rise of Backyard Biotech

In the Atlantic more on the emergence of garage science:

“The small industries and biotech freelancers springing up are, in some ways, like the divisions of the old behemoth drug company, but connected only by the tendrils of the Internet, and the relationships that grow so easily there. Rienhoff is contemporary biotech’s answer to the lost Renaissance man. He pulls the renaissance effect out of the network around him, using the terrible complexity of the global community to fight the terrible complexity of disease. It’s the way science ought to work.”

via Molecularist

Five little-known Vegetables

CS Monitor reports on vegetables that can "improve nutrition and diets, while increasing incomes and improving livelihoods". They are the:

Image of Spider plant courtesy of AVRDC

• Guar, a legume
• Dogon Shallot onion relative
• Spider Plant also known as the African cabbage
• Celosia a hardy leafy plant
• African Eggplant also know as a 'garden egg'

More here

P. J. Flowers-Horticulture Business

In How We Made it in Africa Elizabeth Thande founder of P.J. Flowers on how she embarked on her venture:

Elizabeth Thande (with hat) inspecting her crops. courtesy of howwemadeitinafrica

It started as a joke in the 1980s. I began planting French beans and potatoes on a four acre piece of family land after an insurance agency firm I was running failed. In 1988 I ventured into flower farming, initially as an outgrower. I received a visit from some experts from Germany who encouraged me to grow more and better varieties and to consider exporting. I went to the Netherlands where I got the opportunity to network with prospective buyers. When I came back to Kenya there was no turning back. I plunged into the flower export business head on. Today, P.J. Flowers has expanded and runs a 33 acre flower and fresh vegetable farm in Gilgil and Limuru. We employ over 80 people.

More here

Innovation Depends on a Robust Manufacturing Sector

William M. Bulkeley writing in Technology Review:

When companies outsource their manufacturing work, suppliers close or move, engineers learn different skills, local colleges drop some job-training courses, and the whole ecosystem shrinks. Even if a given company employs just as many engineers and designers as before, they will be part of a smaller community. In their article, Pisano and Shih noted that lots of knowledge is still transferred among engineers in face-to-face meetings and that according to some research, most industrial knowledge is transferred when people switch jobs. A smaller ecosystem in which manufacturing is delegated to offshore organizations makes such transfers more difficult.Moreover, offshore manufacturers tend to build on their manufacturing expertise. Driven by pressure to boost profits, they take on a growing share of the design work for many products. Today, except for Apple's products, nearly all laptops are not only built in Asia but designed there as well.

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Eating Ugandan Grasshoppers-"Nsenene"

Continuing our focus on mini-livestock we take a look at a CNN high-protein snack report:

During high season the sidewalks of the Kampala neighborhood of Natete are lined with mostly women vendors selling grasshoppers whole or plucked of their legs, wings and antennae and deep fried or sautéed with onion and chili. They fetch 1,000 Ugandan shillings (40 cents) for four-teaspoons worth.Boys shouldering plastic buckets of them roam the streets or drift into bars where the grasshoppers are spread on a banana leaf and savored with cold beer.Once a subsistent delicacy trapped in polythene bags or between the folds of flapping blankets, mostly by women and children, grasshoppers, known locally as "nsenene," have evolved into a booming informal sector.Mawanda says he earns about two million Ugandan shillings (about $780) per season from grasshoppers -- more than double Uganda's GDP per capita -- and though he still lives amid a clutter of rooms along a garbage-clogged canal in Natete, he has constructed a row of stalls now being rented out as a salon, pharmacy, and drug shop.

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Apply for a TED 2012 Fellowship

Applications are now open for TED 2012 fellowships. See here for details

Leleshwa Wine Kenya

The AFP on Leleshwa an extreme winemaking vineyard:

Dressed in cowboy boots and jeans with three days' stubble and greying hair, manager James Farquharson supervises the harvest and pretty much all else going on at the vineyard.He dips his hand into one of the baskets and looks at a bunch of grapes with satisfaction."We're practically on the Equator and at very high altitude. That makes management of the vines here very different from the way it would be in France or even in South Africa," he explained.The goal on this more-than-mile-high farm is ambitious -- to produce a quality wine in Kenya

More here
via Bombastic Elements

Young World Inventors

Support the Young World Inventors project on Kickstarter:

DNA is now DIY: OpenPCR - Open source, hackable PCR machine

A new addition to the garage biotech movement. From the OpenPCR blog

A PCR machine is basically a copy machine for DNA. It is essential for most work with DNA, things like exposing fraud at a sushi restaurant, diagnosing diseases including HIV and H1N1, or exploring your own genome. The guy who discovered the PCR process earned a Nobel Prize in 1993, and OpenPCR is now the first open source PCR machine.

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Tricked Out Boda-Boda Bicycles

courtesy of James Mollison for Colors Magazine

In the NYTimes, customized Kenyan Boda-Boda bicycles:

Egypt-From Revolution to Startups

The benefits of freedom continue to accrue in Egypt. Tahrir² covered earlier happens to part of larger awakening startup trend within the country. Hannah Seligson writes in the NYTimes:

Marwan Roushdy pitches her startup Inkezny. Image courtesy of the Holly Pickett

Six months after an uprising led by people like her ousted Hosni Mubarak and overturned the established order of the Arab world, Ms. Mehairy has joined the ranks of Egypt’s newest business class: the entrepreneurs of the revolution. Instead of leaving Egypt as she had planned, she is staying to nurture a start-up called SuperMama, an Arabic-language Web site for women that has 10 local employees.

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Tiffany Amber Fashion

Folake Folarin-Coker founder of Tiffany Amber has a "...love for luxurious fabric and intricate embellishment from all over the world whilst at the same time instilling her African heritage to produce timeless , feminine and effortlessly stylish pieces..."-website

CTIC-Startup Incubator Dakar

Telecom Paper reports on the establishment of CTIC, an incubator:

...the new facility will avail local entrepreneurs of expertise and support to strongly increase their chance of success and reduce the considerable risk of failure often experienced by business creators. CTIC Dakar cites unspecified studies showing that businesses that start with the support of incubators have twice the success rate of those that do not. The incubator will focus on administrative, commercial, marketing and accounting aspects, as well as providing clients with the necessary infrastructure for their businesses to succeed. Two levels of support are in place, one for ICT businesses already on the ground and another for entrepreneurial ideas that have not yet materialised.

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YamBEEji Agricultural Processing

How We Made it Africa reports on YamBEEji Founded by Chibbonta Chilala:

Image courtesy of howwemadeit in Africa

YamBEEji has been operating as a private entity since 2006 and is engaged in rice production, processing and packaging. The firm is also involved in the buying and packaging of honey, which is marketed in the north-western part of Zambia and other towns in the country at wholesale and retail level.“We aim at becoming a successful and vibrant rice milling company, with a strong outgrower scheme partnership network across the country, which is able to meet the demands and volume supplies of the company,”-Chibbonta Chilala

A Mobile Banking Solution for Agric processing-AIMS

All Mobile Money reports on a service for Ghanaian farmers provided by African Investors Management Services founded by Judson Welsh:

In a bid to remove risks involved in carrying cash as buyers go to purchase the raw materials from farmers, a Ghanaian firm, AIMS Ltd has developed a mobile banking solution that aims to address this problem. The service is currently running on pilot with Ecobank to source cashew nuts for processors.

Mr Welsh explains:

Instead of carrying cash in a box to purchase an agricultural commodity in a rural area, the answer is to set up a transparent system for the banker, buyer and supplier which permits traceability of the money movements,”

Continuing:

”The negotiations between the buyer and the supplier take place as they would normally for quality and quantity, but instead of handing over cash, the buyer notifies the bank of the amount required for the supplier (prior identification established)

Further reading here

Found at ebookbrowse.com

The Yam Revitalized

Over at Spore:

Image via Wikipedia

The time-honoured yam, which is mainly grown in West Africa, is also a product for the future. Improved varieties, which are more productive or better suited to urban consumers, are helping to ensure a boom for the tuber.

On improved methods of cultivation:

For years, production systems for cultivating yam remained traditional, including the varieties grown and the crop management applied. Then, in the 2000s, research programmes developed new high-yielding improved varieties, which were resistant to parasites and had good culinary qualities. The results were extremely positive, with improved varieties often passing from one farmer to another more quickly than via extension agents.

More here

Related articles

• The African Yam Bean (timbuktuchronicles.blogspot.com)

VZHUN Media

"...VZHUN MEDIA founded by the award winning Emem Ema is a Nigerian based media outfit designed to create and develop momentous entertainment through the audio and visual media. It is also our mission to create, develop and present purpose driven radio and TV programmes (Reality TV, drama series, serials, and sitcoms), movies/ film and documentary..."-website

At 'Fundi Bots' discover solutions through robotics and electronics

An initiative of Solomon King:

Old Meets New. Nigel, the newer cooler Arduino powered bot looks down at Rover Mark at Fundibots

Fundi Bots was founded in the belief that Africa needs a local and social approach to its technical problems. We want to focus on the promotion, exposure, experimentation and technological growth in the fields of electronics and robotics.We plan to do this by a) creating a place where passionate African children can learn, grow and experiment with machines, gadgets and technology with no obligations and b) creating an environment that fosters collaboration on both social and commercial solutions to our technical problems from an African perspective.

Quick Hits

Kenya’s tourism board 
broadens its appeal to tourists from emerging markets and higher-end consumers.
The maker movement's many entry points create a welcoming environment for tech education.
SABMiller plans to capture the African beer market by sourcing local ingredients...using sorghum.
Ibe Ananaba a budding illustrator and artist.
10 of Africa’s Best Food Blogs.
The challenges of keeping livestock in the city

Etri Labs Benin

Cotonou based Tech-hub:

Etrilabs is a center of creativity and innovation which aims to provide an environment conducive to the emergence of disruptive technologies. Etrilabs provides application development, software, educational content and serves as an incubator for start-ups of local and regional.

KuNa Fashion

MediaUpdate profiles KuNa founded by Shingai Netshipise.Discussing their philosopy she states:

“While off-the-shelf garments are pre-made according to standardized measurements based on the age of the child, we recognize that some children are tall or petite for their age and many of the garments are therefore custom-made to individual specification,” says Netshipise.

Investing in Fashion|Foschini Group & Fashion Business Angola

In Ladybrille Rolake Adeniran highlights two organizations committed to the future of the African fashion business:

Image courtesy of TFG

The Foschini Group (TFG) is a South African fashion retail company that is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The Foschini Group has not only grown its core brand, Foschini, over the years; it has also grown inorganically through acquisitions and the introduction of multiple brands aimed at difference segments within the fashion industry. Some of their brands include Donna-Claire, Fashion Express and Luella. In order to maximize its profits, TFG has also paid attention to its cost structure by being backwards integrated. Through its own sourcing company, the TFG Apparel Supply Company, it has gained economies of scale as a result of buying materials in bulk for its various brands.

While from an incubation standpoint:

Fashion Business Angola was launched in 2010 and it aims to facilitate networking between designers, manufacturers and retailers. This networking platform between industry stakeholders could in the near future, result in strong business relationships and promising deals being forged.

More here

Related articles

• ÀSÀBÍ by Nike Oshinowo (timbuktuchronicles.blogspot.com)

Co-Creation Hub Nigeria

Loy Okezie of Techloy recently asked a question about the absence of tech-hubs in Nigeria. Co-Creation Hub along with We-Innovation covered earlier are looking to change that perception. Co-creation hub describes itself as:

Nigeria’s first open living lab and pre-incubation space being designed to be a multi-functional, multi-purpose space where work to catalyze creative social tech ventures take place. The HUB will be a place for technologists, social entrepreneurs, government, tech companies, impact investors and hackers in and around Lagos to co-create new solutions to the many social problems in Nigeria.

Related articles

• Yes, There Are Tech Startups in Nigeria. Here Are My Favorites. (techcrunch.com)

Distributed Manufacturing and the Bioeconomy

Rob Carlson and Rik Wehbring write about how biotechnology is "Changing the Scale of Industrial Production" they cite the case of craft beer production in the US. More than a few lessons for those budding distributed manufacturing 2.0 entrepreneurs in Africa:

Image of brewing casks courtesy of Bento

The future of the U.S. economy might be found in a pint of beer. The rise of craft brewing in the United States is a fascinating test case of distributed biological manufacturing emerging in a market dominated by large scale industrial production. Microbreweries today compete successfully in a commodity market with the largest of multinationals,suggesting that small scale biological manufacturing may be even more successful inhigher margin markets. Over the coming decades advances in biotechnology will improvethe feasibility and competitiveness of manufacturing firms of all sizes

More here

Urban farming more profitable than white-collar jobs for many Congolese — City Farmer News

Further news on the urban farming revolution in the DRC. Irin reports:

Image of Kinshasa Manioc plot courtesy of Nick Hobgood

Sebastien Mbuku, previously a school teacher in Kinshasa, said teaching only paid the bills for one week of the month. Unable to make ends meet, he turned to farming amaranth – a leaf vegetable - and spinach on 16 square metres of land.Mbuku said he can now afford to put meat on the table to feed his wife and five children, and cover school fees. “Working as a small vegetable grower has become like any other respected job,” Mbuku said.

On the credit worthiness of these urban gardeners:

“At first I doubted the ability of vegetable growers to pay back credit,” said Dick Mabiala, a credit agent at FINCA. “But I changed my mind when a lady growing fruit and vegetables took a $300 credit and came back to deposit $1,000 worth of profits into her account. The woman was only using two hectares of land for her enterprise.”

and improving incomes:

Farmers have seen their incomes increase dramatically. In Kinshasa and in the town of Lubumbashi the average annual income of each farmer increased from around $500 in 2004 to $2,000 in 2010. In Likasi town it rose from $700 to $3,500. There have been similar increases in other cities, according to the FAO statement.

More here
via City Farmer

iLab Liberia

An Ushahidi partner iLaB Liberia's goals include to "...to assist IT professionals as well as organizations and institutions in their efforts to more readily share information using ICT. Specifically, our staff offers trainings in open source tools and systems because they promote interactive communities and shared ownership..." In addition "...is also a space for local meet-ups, such as Liberian programmers developing the first Liberian Android apps, for the local GTUG chapter to have its biweekly sessions..."

Related articles

• Ushahidi Liberia: new office, new lessons in importing + cold water (ushahidi.com)
• iLab Liberia's must-haves (ushahidi.com)

Practical training for Rural Entrepreneurs|Songhai Centre

Over at the New Agriculturist:

trainees at work Image courtesy of quietgriot

"Urban areas are not paradise," says 29 year-old Noureni Yacoubou. Facing unemployment in his home area of northern Benin, he chose to invest in agricultural training, turning his back on the growing trend to head to the city for work. Now graduated from the Songhai Centre in Porto Novo, a training centre which equips students to establish small-scale businesses in rural areas, he manages his own cattle enterprise which employs 50 people from his community.

Fish Farm feeding machine Image courtesy of quietgriot

From rabbit farming to mushroom and ornamental flower production, the Songhai Centre has encouraged graduates to establish more than 1,000 successful enterprises in Benin alone, challenging the low levels of productivity, efficiency and employment found in rural areas...[continue reading]

Congo's VMK Gingerbread tablet

Tablet Planet reports:

VMK a Congolese tech company has started to build the buzz for their impeding Android tablet...Google’s Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread operating system will be used for the tablet, similar to the new 7-inch HTC Flyer.

Helios Raises $900 Million for African Fund

The WSJ reports on Helios funds co-founded by Tope Lawani:

Helios Investment Partners said Monday it has raised $900 million for its second African fund, the largest-ever private-equity fund for investments in the continent.
Like its predecessor fund, Helios Investors II will invest $25 to $250 million of equity per transaction in various forms, including business formations, growth equity investments, structured investments in listed entities and large, leveraged acquisitions.
The fund will focus on high-growth sectors that have been deregulated, are core to the economy and are in sectors in which the firm has particular expertise, such as technology, media and telecommunications, financial services, power and utilities, distribution and logistics and consumer goods...[continue reading]

Equipment Needed to Get “Started” in Electronics

In Hack a Day:

[Kenneth] is a Mechanical Engineer who likes to dabble in electronics. Besides providing us with an excellent picture of his workbench, he has put together a list of things that you’ll need as you learn to work with electronics. A beginner electronics kit from one of a number of different sources may work for some, but others may not be interested in a kit.
[Kenneth] gives links and recommendations for categories of: books, electrical equipment, development tools, components, digital electronics, and analog chips. As he puts it, this post is a “gigantic list of everything I would buy right now to replace my entire workshop if mine were to disappear.”

Safou: the “Butterfruit”

Dan Kane wiriting in Worldwatch about a fruit with an avocado-like texture(when boiled):

Safou Fruit Photo credit: S. Olanrewaju Disu

Native to the humid, tropical forests of West and Central Africa, safou (Dacryodes edulis) is also known as the “butterfruit” for its rich, oily pulp. But safou is more than just creamy and delicious. It’s quickly becoming an important cash crop for small farmers in Africa and has proven useful in agroforestry systems and in preventing hunger.
People in West and Central Africa have been eating safou for centuries as a fresh fruit between meals and cooked as a main course. When roasted or quickly boiled in salted water, the pulp separates from the skin and seed and takes on a buttery texture. In Nigeria, cooked pulp is combined with starchy foods like maize to make a main course. And if cooked for even longer, a healthy oil, primarily made up of unsaturated fats, can be extracted from the pulp and seed.
...[continue reading]

Where are Nigeria's Tech-hubs?

Loy Okezie of Techloy writes:

Image of iHub Nairobi

Ever heard of Kenya’s iHub? Cameroon’s ActivSpaces or even Ghana’s MEST?

These are all thriving innovation hubs and incubation centres that are encouraging collaboration amongst technology entrepreneurs and birthing very innovative products and services.Little wonder, the international media has turned its attention on some of these emerging tech markets in Africa like Kenya with their beaming searchlights.
Unfortunately, Nigeria hardly gets any of its technology companies or entrepreneurs featured in foreign media, let alone mentioned or cited in a focus on African tech entrepreneurship.This begs some questions: Are there really Nigerian tech entrepreneurs out there? Or are there just a noisy bunch of know-it-all-but-do-nothing-developers out there?

More here