Chillimango Clothing

In Kenya:

ChilliMango Clothing is a design house dedicated to making easy and comfortable weekend wear. The clothes are inspired by different world cultures using African fabric i.e the Leso, Batiks, Kikois. Also featured, are different carefully thought out t-shirt designs featuring African themes.

Ikenna Azuike's - Commentator & Humorist

African Digital Art profiles Ikenna Azuike covered previously:

Ikenna Azuike is the creator of the video blog What’s up Africa is a fresh fun cool and refreshing look about what is cool and awesome on our great continent. The idea came to Ikenna after being frustrated by the tedious and overused steretoypes that has plagued Africa for so long. What ‘s up Africa promises to showcase the creative side of Africa. Its snazzy, fun and humorous and definitely worth a look.

Why the Best Days of Open Hardware are Yet to Come

Bunnie Huang at the Open Hardware Summit:

courtesy of Adafruit

Currently, open hardware is a niche industry. In this post, I highlight the trends that have caused the hardware industry to favor large, closed businesses at the expense of small or individual innovators. However, looking 20-30 years into the future, I see a fundamental shift in trends that can tilt the balance of power to favor innovation over scale
…
In the beginning, hardware was open. Early consumer electronic products, such as vacuum tube radios, often shipped with user manuals that contained full schematics, a list of replacement parts, and instructions for service. In the 80’s, computers often shipped with schematics. For example, the Apple II shipped with a reference manual that included a full schematic of the mainboard, an artifact that I credit as strongly influencing me to get into hardware. However, contemporary user manuals lack such depth of information; the most complex diagram in a recent Mac Pro user instructs on how to sit at the computer: “thighs slightly lifted”, “shoulders relaxed”, etc.

What happened? Did electronics just get too hard and complex? On the contrary, improving electronics got too easy: the pace of Moore’s Law has been too much for small-scale innovators to keep up.

More here via Adafruit

Biohackers Build Their Own Labs

In Wired:

From Backyard Brains the Spikerbox for neuron monitoring

Ask people inside the biohacker movement where they think it will have the biggest impact and they talk about education—being able to do genetics in classrooms. They (regularly) bring up Sushigate, the 2008 case of New York City high school students who used DNA testing to discover that sushi restaurants and supermarkets were mislabeling their fish. The results may be cool, but for now the machines are where the real action is. Behind the scenes, engineers and science enthusiasts are teaming up to mod tools and technologies and then sell their inventions—or simply share tips on how to build them—to anyone interested. Homemade PCR devices are drawing the most attention, since anyone who wants to work with DNA has to put it through a PCR machine first.

More here

Ségou Villages: Hacking Together Rural Internet Access

In Rising Voices:

How do you connect to the web in rural villages when there is often no cybercafe, no electricity, or computer? Segou Village Connection has opted for a grassroots solution. Thanks to the Rising Voices grant, a few pieces of equipments were bought by project leader Boukary Konaté and a mobile Internet unit set up. In this interview, he describes how he has been working towards the goal of amplifying voices from the rural villages despite these infrastructure challenges.

Boukary Konaté checks the mobile internet outfit

Rising Voices: Hello Boukary, what do you need to be connected to the Web in rural Mali? Boukary Konaté: Our mobile internet unit is composed of a second-hand laptop and a smartphone, a solar panel to power them with electricity, a battery to store electrical power, and a converter to have the correct voltage needed for the laptop and smartphone. We also bought a connection drive (shaped like a USB drive) to connect to the local GSM mobile network. It can be credited with minutes every month or when you need them.

Emamoke Ukeleghe-Textile Designer

AACDD in conversation with Emamoke Ukeleghe a decorative textile designer:

Photo courtesy of AACD

How would you describe what you do as a designer?
As a designer, I create decorative textiles that tell a story. Sometimes they are stories from my childhood or the stories of others. I also explore the themes of displacement and identity and use my fabric to communicate with the viewer and provoke an emotional connection with my prints.

Read the rest of the interview here

In Agriculture, Information is Power

Sarah Bartlett writing in National Geographic:

Standing in the heart of his pineapple farm in the Central Region of Ghana, Ali Morrison, gripping two mobile phones, tells the story of his most recent sale. Traders came to him offering just .20 Ghana cedis for each pineapple. That’s about 13 US cents. This time around he and his business partner, Isaac Assan, had their mobiles on hand and did a quick SMS price request to Esoko. He sent in the word “pineapple”. He received a list of prices covering the major markets in Ghana. In the past farmers like Ali and Isaac have had no choice but to blindly accept the prices offered by traders. But the recent and sudden ability to refer to current prices across the country disrupts that whole dynamic. It gives farmers confidence that they didn’t have before, and it takes away the opportunity for traders to lie about prices in faraway markets. Knowing the trader would resell in the capital city’s market for .80 cedis each, Ali wouldn’t budge until he got .40 cedis. He doubled his profits that week, making 400 Ghana cedis instead of 200. That’s US$165 more. And just for the price of a text message.

Members of Esoko’s technical team at work in Accra, Ghana. Photo credit: ©Louis Jouve Photography

On pricing transparency

Seeing Ali access current prices – like a stock trader accessing Reuters – shows just how powerful information itself can be. Farmers are business people too. But they can’t do good business if they don’t have information. Ali’s story about using Esoko’s SMS prices to increase revenues is not the only one we’ve heard recently. Mobile technology is just beginning to take center stage here, and it’s remarkable to watch. Back in Accra, the team at Esoko is busy building the technology platform that makes all of this possible. The company itself had very humble beginnings. Just three technicians trying to figure out why no-one had quite cracked what they saw as the biggest riddle out there. With mobile coverage rates in Africa around 60% and at least 60% of the African population making a living through agriculture, why had the two not been addressed together? There seemed to be such an opportunity in that gap.

More here

Alnif Cumin | Morocco

From the Slow Food Foundation an aromatic spice:

Originally from Asia, the cumin plant from this area is prized for its quality and intense aroma. It is planted at the end of January and harvested between the end of April and beginning of May before the plant has completely ripened and loses most of its seeds. This is the only way of keeping the bright green color. The cumin is cut manually with a sickle, made into bunches and hung on a stick to dry in the shade before being beaten to release the seeds. The seeds are sieved several times, using a container made of woven palm leaves, to remove dust and fine straw. They can keep for up to two years and are stone ground when needed using a traditional mill.

More here

iLab Liberia - The Video

iLab Liberia covered earlier launches their video:

Hardware is the new Software

Nick Pinkston, Founder, CloudFab at Pivotal Labs

We see the power of cheap cloud hosting, OSS, and incubators to make building a web app cheap, and now the same is happening to hardware. The means of production is becoming democratized and agile hardware startups are popping up to solve problems

Watch the video here

Integrated Aquaculture

The New Agriculturist on the benefits of integrated Aquaculture:

Away from the paddy fields, livestock may be integrated with fish and crops where every constituent in the system helps to increase production and income. The water stored in farm ponds can be used to extend crop production into dry seasons, thereby increasing total production and attracting premium prices for out-of-season produce; increased production also provides by-products for feeding livestock (cattle, small ruminants, rabbits and poultry); livestock manures, household waste and cereal brans added to ponds feed aquatic plants and animals that in turn feed the fish; and finally, the mud that accumulates as sediment can be used to fertilize the land for fruit and vegetable crops. Just as the integration of trees into crop and livestock production on farms (agroforestry) has provided benefits that reflect a synergy between the various elements, similarly agro-pisciculture can be seen to offer farmers more than just fish as an extra farm crop. Overall, crop yields are increased, fish, fruit and vegetables enrich family diets, greater surpluses provide greater income and, finally, soils are not continuously degraded but made more fertile. It is also important to note that whilst waste is reduced and water quality is maintained, farmers are also more circumspect in their use of pesticides and other chemicals so that pollution is generally avoided.

courtesy of Auburn University

This system that has worked so well for millennia could help to break the double downward spiral of falling food production and declining soil fertility which affects so many regions in Asia and Africa. Integrated aquaculture systems involve many variables and are therefore highly site-specific. However, providing that soils are water retentive, this integrated system, which promotes species diversification and nutrient recycling, can make even the most marginal lands more productive. Fish is also a popular food but marine catches are falling and even where production from inland waters is available, demand often outstrips supply. Yields of farmed fish in integrated systems cannot be expected to make good the shortage but the additional benefits often exceed the simple value of the harvested fish.

More here

Reel African-Watch African Movies Anytime

Victor Mallet of Reel African discusses the goals of their video streaming company:

Reel African from ReelAfrican on Vimeo.
Reelafrican aims to become the premier destination for African-produced entertainment content, and already have licensed films from the likes of Shirley Frimpong-Manso (one of Ghana's hottest and most prolific film-makers), South African films, a Kenyan TV series, and a lot more. Our target audiences are initially Africans and Caribbeans in the diaspora (who have easier and better access to good internet connections) so primarily the US and then Europe.

A related Variety article highlights the business model:

Content will be free for all viewers, with revenue initially generated by selling a 10-second advertising spot for every 8-10 minutes of content. The company will split ad revenues 50-50 with content owners.The site's target audience, says Victor Mallet, one of the four co-founders, is the large number of Africans living outside the continent with no reliable way to watch movies and series from home."The market that wants to watch these films is in the U.S.," he says. "We would like to see good content coming out of Africa, (but) there's no way to watch it."The site plans to target the U.S. first, before expanding to the U.K. and the Caribbean.

Power of Making-Growing your 'Tote' Bag

From TED Fellow Suzanne Lee's Blog

Last night saw the opening of 'Power of Making' at the V&A Museum in London. Curated by Daniel Charny, the show is produced in association with the Crafts Council. For this exhibition I chose to prototype a bag idea I'd had for some time. I'm keen to focus on the leather-like qualities of microbial cellulose and a 'tote' bag represented a simple form that would test the material and trial a new construction method. A wooden form was made from MDF, modular, it is designed to dismantle and release the dried, moulded bag. Metal studs were hammered in a simple decorative pattern that describes the shape of the bag and which, from previous experiments, were expected to cause oxidation thereby effecting an organic black patination. Wet cellulose was cut and laid over the wooden form with a double layer over the bottom for reinforcement. All edges were overlapped to encourage strong seams with evaporation...[continue reading]

Nigeria's Charcoal Exports

Over at CNN a focus on the charcoal trade in Nigeria:

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DealDey

A Nigerian Groupon:

DealDey features a daily deal on the best things to do, see, eat, and buy in Lagos. DealDey is an easy and fun way to get fantastic deals on great experiences. At DealDey we support local businesses and in return they support consumers with good savings! We want to create a "Win-Win" scenario each and every day for local merchants who want to attract new customers, and consumers who want to save money and take advantage great services and activities in their own city

‪Lets Open up Science! - Open Science Summit

From the Open Science Summit:

Science is how we know the world and solve our problems.It's a powerful collaborative effort based on sharing facts and improving solutions. But science isn't working for everyone and needs our help now.We need new ways of sharing knowledge to harness global collaborations that will make research much more efficient. We require universal access to scientific publications and a new patent system that encourages innovation and makes it easier.

Jean Katambayi Mukendi-Artistic Scientist

Pixelache reports on a prize-winning alumni of the Ker-Thiossane residency program:

courtesy of med-in-marseille

Jean Katambayi Mukendi was born in 1974 in Lubumbashi, the ‘Capital of copper’, in the South-East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he lives and works. Self-taught artist and scientist, he has a passion for logic, mechanics, geometry and above all electricity. Born to an electrician father and a mother working for a company in the metal extraction business, he was early on surrounded by all sorts of metals at home, which became an essential substance to his artistic work. Bricolage and the art of paper cutting were part of everyday life and Jean also soon discovered a passion for numbers. Already as a child, he starting sculpting cardboard machines, spending days and nights building them. He studied at a technical school like his four sisters and brothers, graduated from there as an electrician and later on pursued studies in mathematics. However he remained ‘puzzled by creation’ until his encounter with the art world a few years later.

image courtesy of pixelache

His art practice synthesizes the influences of his direct environment, the knowledge acquired during his studies and the everyday difficulties of contemporary African societies. Jean says that ‘through electricity, he can show the functioning of any organism: how the energy is pumped, the reception, through a circuit’. Cardboard, thread to his childhood, remains the main raw material onto which he applies different metals (copper, aluminum, steel). From there he elaborates sophisticated electrical mechanisms, embedded into fragile, beautiful and complex conceptual installations, involving hours and hours of work. Jean explains that ‘all the things in Congo are done in a very quick, careless way and often the end result is ugly’. So in addition to asking radical questions about society and calling for change, he is also hoping to make people understand the importance of such a basic thing as beauty created by proper craftsmanship.

More here
via Ker Thiossane

African Designers and Online Shopping

Andie Okon writing in Haute:

courtesy of Haute

Something that could fill the wide dearth between African designers and their customers is online shopping. With the commendable coverage and exposure African fashion has seen in the past couple of years, online shopping seems like the next big leap for African designers. A few countries like South Africa have fashion designers that are definitely forerunners in maximising the benefits of online shopping in Africa. Online stores like MyAsho and fashion-conscience have done a fine job of bringing African and African inspired fashion a little closer to our door steps. Bless them and the burgeoning number of designers launching online stores. There’s a natural high we all get from walking through the shop doors straddling a dozen shopping bags and trying to look effortlessly chic while doing it. An all too familiar high. And online shopping doesn’t forestall the glory of good ol’ in-store shopping; it just makes things more accessible especially for people with busy schedules...[continue reading]

Asidu Abudu-Inventor

In Africa Report:

Asidu Abudu sits in his workshop surrounded by gadgets of odds bits and pieces. This is his mechanical playing ground, where inanimate and discarded objects are brought to life with his inventive hands. Since a child, Asidu has dreamt up inventions in his sleep and gone to work making them the following day. Turning his hobby into his business venture, he has found that there are many resourceful uses for his objects. Focusing on the needs of people, like those who have lost limbs in war and are now incapable to feed themselves with their own hands, he has made devices that will help them manage in real life. This can be seen with his feeding instrument that spoons food into the mouth of the disabled person using it...[continue reading]

Asidu can be contacted at 233-244-577293 and asiduabudu@yahoo.com

3 Day Egyptian Maker Space at Maker Faire Africa,Cairo

Support Bilal Ghalib and Mitch Altman's kickstarter project to launch African hackerspaces.It will be debuting at Maker Faire Africa, Cairo.

What do you want to do?

We want to organize a fully immersive 3 day Maker/Hacker space at Maker Fair Africa in Cairo, Egypt, but we need your support to heat the soldering irons and power the circuits! Imagine a place that integrates art, science, technology into a great start-up culture; open to all curious humans of all skill levels and all ages; and supported by Egypt's finest makers. Our goal is to establish a full-time Maker/Hackerspace in Cairo -- and more throughout Africa!

JokkoLabs Senegal

Founded by Karim SY :

Jokkolabs is a laboratory of ideas, action-oriented. It is run by a dynamic learning community of entrepreneurs - catalysts and agents of change - who invest on the challenges of tomorrow to create positive change and invent a better world. This movie revolves around a virtual space and coworking spaces - the center of technological innovation and social - called JokkoSpace.

Kenya-Ecological Life of a Flip Flop

From View Change:

...in Kenya, much-loved "pata-patas" are repaired, reused, and recycled - but never wasted. The film follows the long life cycle of this colorful footwear, a story full of resourcefulness, enterprise, and creativity.

via Next Billion and Reculture

The underground Venture Capital economy

In the Washington Post "The underground venture capital economy"

At a time when the above-ground economy seems to be stuck in perpetual neutral, something very interesting is happening in the underground economy. On do-it-yourself crowd-funding sites like Kickstarter, significant amounts of capital are starting to flow to a group of ingenious projects that bridge the gap between the creative arts and cutting-edge technology — a sweet spot that’s pure money. In some cases, entrepreneurs are raising $100K or $200K at a time — even when they ask for only a fraction of that. In the post-downgrade economy, these instances are proof that a solid business plan, a way to reward passionate supporters and a little DIY mojo goes a long way. Consider some of the projects that are being funded these days. Two recent crowd favorites include the Desktop Jellyfish Tank, which set out to raise $3,000 and ended up raising more than $100,000 from supporters…

More here
via Adafruit

Hackerspaces – The Beginning (the book)

In Hackerspaces blog, "...This book documents where the hackerspace movement was in December of 2008. In that way it’s a bit of a time capsule. It’s not an exhaustive book, but we hope there are enough stories in here to show that all your excuses for not starting up a hackerspace are invalid. Each group faced down their own dragons to bring their hackerspace into existence including floods, rats, and drama. If they can do it, so can you..."[continue reading]

The international hackerspace movement is gaining momentum and new hackerspaces are opening up every month somewhere in the world to give the curious people who like to make and break things a place to meet. Geeks and nerds are often portrayed sitting alone behind the glow of a laptop screen, but now, in many cities big and small around the world, hackers gather to solder electronics, share programming skills, teach classes, and build a community of intelligent, inquisitive, and clever people. I truly believe that groups of hackers can tackle any challenge they want to take on. Each hackerspace is different. Some are bigger than others and some focus more on hardware than software and some take on social justice issues and politics. More and more hackers are connecting and igniting friendships at hacker conferences and camps. Getting a hackerspace started is full of challenges and setbacks, but I hope that when you read these stories of hackerspace beginnings, you‘ll be inspired to gather a few hackers together, find a space, and start scheming to make awesomeness happen!

Download it, read it, and share it.

Makeshift Magazine

Steve Daniels of Making Do launches Makeshift on Kickstarter: Makeshift is a quarterly magazine and multimedia website about creativity in unlikely places, from the favelas of Rio to the alleys of Delhi. These are environments where resources may be scarce, but where ingenuity is used incessantly for survival, enterprise, and a self-expression. Makeshift is about people, the things they make, and the context they make them in.Much of our coverage will involve remote emerging markets, but we recognize that creativity is hidden everywhere. We want to place you, our readers, in locations you will likely never get to see and reveal street-level ingenuity you might not expect.

Shanzhai and Open Source Hardware - A pointer for Africa's Informal Industrial Clusters?

In Seeed Studio an Institute For The Future conversation on "the disruptive potential of the growing connections between (mostly) Western-based hackers and agile Chinese manufacturing networks (Shanzai)". There are lessons galore for the Suame Magazine's; Nnewi's and Jua Kali's - Africa's Informal Industrial Clusters and emerging hackerspaces.

Shanzai products courtesy of Reason

David Li, founder of Xinchejian, China’s first formal hacker space states:

Here is my personal take on the issues of personal manufacture. I think it's a future we are all looking forward to and the path to it will likely go through China with micro-manufacturing. I am sure you have heard of the term Shanzhai used to describe a big cluster of Chinese knock-off vendors in Shenzhen making cellphones. They are now shipping over 250 million cellphones a year and most of those are actually produced in small quantity at 10,000 a batch with all type of variation. Wired UK has a good cover story on this. This model is interesting to look at because it provides a peek into how personal manufacturing and open innovation may emerge. While both started without much regard to IP of the original holders, they share the information among themselves openly. None of the vendors participating in the ecosystem are big and there is no centralized giant among them to coordinate the ecosystem. Each one of them pulls and pushes each other to produce a very efficient micromanufacturing ecosystem that can respond to the market fast with very little overhead. If you take a close look at the Shanzhai, they do fit in nicely to IFTFʼs 6 suggestions on implementing Lightweight Innovation in organizations

Continuing he contends that:

 courtesy of JICA institute

...Shanzhai represents a good place to study open innovation and micromanufacture and their implications for the future of personal manufacturing. I use the term Shanzhai loosely to describe the super efficient micro-manufacturing (light weight as you described it in your paper) ecosystem in China. They are likely to be the partners of the rise of personal manufacturing in the West. Several of the Kickstarter projects have documented nicely their trips to China to manufacture the Kickstarter goods. One of our hackerspace partners, Seeed Studio, is one of the leading Arduino providers and has started several interesting platforms for open source hardware, especially on the manufacture side. We in Shanghai are lucky enough to be at the cross of two movements: the makers and the shanzhai, which gives us a unique perspective on this trend. I have given a few speeches in the past years about Shanzhai and Open Source hardware. I think open source hardware in the West is a more symbolic anticonsumerism movement. Combining that community with the shanzhai will have global impact. It will vastly accelerate the spread of technologies to developing worlds

A Strategist’s Guide to Digital Fabrication

Rapid advances in manufacturing technology point the way toward a decentralized, more customer-centric “maker” culture. Here are the changes to consider before this innovation takes hold.

Courtesy of Mlab

At a research meeting in late 2010, a primatologist studying monkey genetics took a tour of a university’s digital fabrication shop. She mentioned that her field research had stalled because a specialized plastic comb, used in DNA analysis of organic samples, had broken. The primatologist had exhausted her research budget and couldn’t afford a new one, but she happened to be carrying the old comb with her. One of the students in the shop, an architect by training, asked to borrow it. He captured its outline with a desktop scanner, and took a piece of scrap acrylic from a shelf. Booting up a laptop attached to a laser cutter, he casually asked, “How many do you want?”...[continue reading]

via Adafruit

Ntsiki Biyela - Wine maker

The NYtimes profiles Ntsiki Biyela:

While still a student, Ms. Biyela was given a part-time job at Delheim, a large winery, and this led to her oenological conversion. She not only worked in the vineyards and the cellar but also served wine to visitors in the tasting room and was consequently obliged to discuss what she poured. So she too tasted. She developed her palate.After graduation, Stellekaya, a boutique winery in Stellenbosch, hired her as its winemaker. It was a big leap, and the winery was taking a big chance on someone so inexperienced. A consultant helped her in the beginning, but soon she was on her own. Her very first red blend won a gold medal at the country’s prestigious Michelangelo awards.

Watch related video after the jump

More here

The Dates of Libya

From the Slow Food Foundation an initiative from the land of the dates:

A journey into the heart of Libya in the oasis of Al Jufrah, on the ancient caravan routes, the discovery of a unique heritage in the world: four hundred varieties of dates preserved with care by peasants. A wealth that has shaped the culture and the customs of this country, from language to religion, from architecture to cuisine.

Zekaryas Solomo - Designer

Creative Boom highlights the work of Zekaryas Solomon, entrepreneur and fashion designer:

Solomon doesn’t follow the rules, rather than dictate the material he communicates with it and lets it inspire him resulting in impeccable structure and craftsmanship. Yet he never forgets about nature’s most complex architecture: the human body. His loves lies within bespoke wear each design is created around the individual body.Zekaryas says, “Each body is so different. Ready-to-wear does not offer room to show off the body at it’s best and can potentially be an injustice to it’s own design as well as to the body. My heart is with bespoke garments and the skill it requires and the challenges it brings to make its structure workable on the individual. This is where my passion lies. All my designs are individually fitted to flatter each person’s physique and have a comfortable fit. "I got into fashion when I couldn’t find any clothing that would fit me. I am very slender and so were many of my friends. So I started to design and make clothes for us all.”

More here

::::MERKATO:::: A Documentary

Support Kickstarter documentary project MERKATO by Sosena Solomon:

Hackerspaces - Digital Age Coffee Houses

Heather Brooke writing in the Guardian:

Chaos Computer Club Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters

Hackerspaces are the digital-age equivalent of English Enlightenment coffee houses. They are places open to all, indifferent to social status, and where ideas and knowledge hold primary value. In 17th-century England, the social equality and merit-ocracy of coffee houses was so deeply troubling to those in power that King Charles II tried to suppress them for being "places where the disaffected met, and spread scandalous reports concerning the conduct of His Majesty and his Ministers". It was in the coffee houses that information previously held in secret and by elites was shared with an emerging middle class. They were held responsible for many of the social reforms of the 18th century, when English public life was transformed...[continue reading]

In a related video after the jump, watch Steven Johnson discuss the "liquid networks" of London's coffee houses.

Tech Trend to watch and admire 'Shanzhai'

Andrew "bunnie" Huang writes:

Image via Flickr user  oskay

The shanzhai of China are a tech trend to keep an eye on. Typically dismissed by popular press as simply the “copycat barons from China”, I think they may have something in common with Hewlett and Packard or Jobs and Wozniak back when they were working out of garages. I’ve heard quite a few stories about the shanzhai while on my most recent trip to China, some of which I will share here...shanzhai are rebellious, individualistic, underground, and self-empowered innovators. They are rebellious in the sense that the shanzhai are celebrated for their copycat products; they are the producers of the notorious knock-offs of the iPhone and so forth. They individualistic in the sense that they have a visceral dislike for the large companies; many of the shanzhai themselves used to be employees of large companies (both US and Asian) who departed because they were frustrated at the inefficiency of their former employers. They are underground in the sense that once a shanzhai “goes legit” and starts doing business through traditional retail channels, they are no longer considered to be in the fraternity of the shanzai. They are self-empowered in the sense that they are universally tiny operations, bootstrapped on minimal capital, and they run with the attitude of “if you can do it, then I can as well”.

More here

Update: Jan Chipcase on Shanzai in the Atlantic

Turning Toys into Medical Devices

From CNET:

MIT Professor Jose Gomez Marquez has created medical devices out of Legos, developed a way to print paper-based diagnostic technology, and figured out how to power a nebulizer with a bike pump. Read more: http://news.cnet.com/1606-2_3-50109793.html#ixzz1VyAcpmk0

A DNA sequencing pioneer and a Photodetector engineer

MIT's Tech Review announces its 2011 class of under 35 innovators. They include Yemi Adesokan whose company Pathogenica:

Credit: Mark Ostow

...could let physicians quickly and cheaply pinpoint features of a patient's infection, such as whether it is resistant to certain antibiotics, and prescribe the most effective treatment..their technology can pick out specific regions of a pathogen's genome, such as the genes involved in its ability to infect its host, and sequence many of these regions simultaneously. It minimizes the amount of sequencing, so Pathogenica's approach will be cheaper, faster, and more precise than existing tests, says Adesokan.

And Solomon Assefa,who

Credit: Steve Moors

...has developed a new way to make a photodetector, a very sensitive device that amplifies optical signals and converts them into electrical signals that can be shuttled around in a microprocessor. Ordinarily, photodetectors are made using a process called chemical vapor deposition. But sticking with this process for chip-to-chip connections would make microprocessor manufacturing prohibitively expensive. Instead, Assefa seeds germanium onto a silicon wafer, and then melts it to achieve the regular crystal structure that makes for a good photodetector material. He has also determined when in the chip manufacturing process the photodetector should be added in order to get the best performance possible without degrading the surrounding electronics.