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AfriGadget
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22:11
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
I recently had a chance to conduct an email interview with Simon Mwacharo, an entrepreneur based in Nairobi, Kenya who a great example of what George Ayitteh has so aptly described as “The Cheetah Generation”.
Simon owns and runs CraftSkills, a small business based in Nairobi, Kenya that focuses on designing and building self-sustaining renewable energy projects in places not accessible to the electric grid. Craftskills had to date undertaken challenging projects in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Cameroon and Rwanda among other places. Simon, whom AfriGadget first got to meet last summer at TED Global in Arusha, Tanzania, graciously agreed to conduct an email interview with AfriGadget.
AfriGadget: Could you tell us when and how Craft Skills got into the business of renewable energy in East Africa and the inspiration behind the organization?
Simon: CRAFTSKILLS was found in the year 2000 by myself. I was inspired by a challenge from my rural home where we have not had power for the last 40 plus years since [Kenya’s] independence [in 1963]. I come from a hill side village in Sagalla, Taita Hills in Coast Province where we receive quite some strong wind from the Nyika Plateau. This wind passes through without being tapped and sometimes our roofs can not stand in its way.
I started talking to people about wind turbines and how I can get an affordable one which I can make and produce for other needy people. When darkness falls in these villages plus the fog it is virtually impossible to travel the terrain at night.
AfriGadget: Tell us a little about the people behind Craft Skills and the staff who work for the organization.
Simon: I started with two workers. I could not afford to hire trained people so I decided to train myself first then train my two boys. Then I got a friend who repairs radios and TVs in Kibera to help me design and put together a charge controller.
Now we have a team of 20 people and other partners out there in the field with their staff totaling 50. We have technicians, welders fitters, fiberglass experts and engineers and sales people.
AfriGadget: What is the typical profile of a Craft Skills project? Who is your typical client and how are the projects typically executed?
Simon: Most of our clients are not the owners of the projects we put up. They benefit from the battery charging services in the wind/solar sites we put up with our partners. The low income earners who cannot afford grid power or are in settlements where grid power is unavailable. We take both to do the sites ourselves involving the people on the ground as partners. Others are home owners who have invested a lot on building good homes in non grid areas – these put up turbines for their own use like lighting, and pumping water from wells and boreholes. The other segment is the business people I market areas where there is no grid who put up turbines to run charging centres and sell power to other shops or run their off-grid businesses like lodges and hotels, schools and other institutions.
AfriGadget: Can you share with our readers some of the challenges that Craft Skills faces in executing your projects?
Simon: We have faced cultural challenges where we cannot put a turbine on the most ideal site due to beliefs on such sites hence we have to educate the citizens to allow us to do so or redesign the project and relocate. Another is the financial capability of the citizens we find in these off grid areas.
[As a result of this] we have designed low power product (battery bundles and LED lights) to reach them so that they can be counted as beneficiaries of this new technology.
AfriGadget: Why renewable energy? What is the rationale behind Craft Skills’ exclusive focus on projects that produce energy from renewable sources.
Simon: We were looking for something which is affordable and sustainable and cuts across the economic sectors. Solar was proving to be more expensive, delicate, sophisticated and easily stolen when installed on ones home. We needed to sell people more power at a cheaper rate hence wind was the best candidate.
Wind is everywhere just like solar – one needs to get the right spot to put the turbine as high as they can. Its 24 hrs (Day and Night) and we found a cheap way we could make our turbines take advantage of low wind situations with the multi-pole generator, hollow blades for the propeller, with 90 per cent locally available materials making our technology the best application for this region.
AfriGadget: Which would you say has been the most satisfying/gratifying project that you have been involved with at Craft Skills? What was so special to you about this particular project?
Simon: The Chifiri water pan project to me is most gratifying. This settlement is all arid land pastoral community. The demand for water for drinking washing and watering the thousands of livestock is enormous.
Our turbine provided a cheaper solution for water and lighting the “manyattas” around the water pan. The contractor on the ground is excellent on his construction of the earth dams. His design impressed me that water was going to be available for over 6 months instead of the normal 4 months after the rainy seasons. He made sure the dams were well compacted and fenced to avoid animals hoofing inside the dam – increasing the rate of percolation and lose of water in the ground. Water is only available at the kiosks which are piped and placed near the settlements. The project provides water troughs for the animals to drink from and bathrooms for the people to clean themselves in. Within the fenced dam there is an armed home guard or caretaker manning the place with a security light up the tower hoisting the turbine.
Simon was also interviewed by Juliana Chebet aka AfroMusing, a Senior Editor at AfriGadget on CraftSkills. You can find the video at this link.
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12:17
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Makeni is a small town in Sierra Leone. Like the rest of the country, it is trying to recover from years of internal strife. Unlike the rest of the country, they have the Binkolo Growth Centre, a small industrial project near Makeni where the manufacture of small farm implements, tailoring, carpentry and blacksmithing takes place, and includes the use of disabled people. Two VSO volunteers, one from Kenya one from Canada, work to train and bring new ideas to the centre.
One such idea was to create a fuel replacement for their pickup by using local palm nuts, a by-product of the palm kernels, which are generally fed to pigs or used for fertilizer. Since diesel fuel for their truck runs approximately $5/gallon, it wouldn’t hurt to try.
It became clear that in our poor country the chief hurdles were getting the chemicals and the right equipment. The search was on for the chemicals and after quite a treasure hunt and more than a few bribes we managed to find 4 litres of Methanol and 5 kilos of Potassium Hydroxide (enough to make a good bomb I think)…
…Actually the whole scene was quite amusing. Here we were hoping to compete with the big oil producers in the back yard of a small village and using an untried collection of old car parts, old pipes and taps attached to a used chemical container, all put together in an image downloaded from the internet. Nonetheless we were fuelled by much excitement, with much of the local community looking on, wondering what on earth we were up to.
Read the rest of this great story, and see a lot more images, on Paul in Sierra Leone’s Blog!
(hat tip Emeka)
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11:31
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
This last week I had the opportunity to catch up with one of my favorite bloggers, Jan Chipchase, while we spoke together on a panel at the Global Philanthropy Forum. Jan works for Nokia as what can best be described as a design and usability ethnographer. He explores the way mobile phones are used worldwide and reports that back to Nokia’s design team. He’s a fascinating person to talk to, and I thought I might highlight some of the stories he’s come up with while exploring in Africa.
 One of the consistent themes of Jan’s message is that it in each country he visits there is a booming market of hackers and mobile phone mechanics who are doing all kinds of interesting things. They are taking the designs of the West and applying them to their lives, modifying them and making them work for their local needs. From Accra to Nairobi, there is always a “cell phone alley” for you to buy, repair or customize your mobile phone.
In a post titled, “Recycled, Upcycled: Remade” he tackles the question of whether it is possible to create a phone completely of recycled parts.
Of all the internal concepts I’ve followed this year this is one I keep returning to, not least because sustainability is a pressing issue in a billion+ products-per-year industry - but also because the team tackled a number of related weighty issues in what was a far reaching project. I hope that in due course more of their design thinking makes it into the public domain, not least to stimulate critical feedback from people like your good selves.
One of the more interesting innovations is the development of a dual SIM card hack so that users can access multiple carriers.
This product has two SIM card slots in a single phone - primarily to support price sensitive/prudent consumers who wish to optimise their call costs by maintaining SIM cards from two different phone operators. As in many countries - calls to a customer using a different Ghanaian operator cost slightly more than those on the same network.
There are many more examples of mobile phone use in Africa and the ingenious solutions that locals come up with for their particular situations on Jan’s blog. The last image that I want to show is of the Village Phone project (by Grameen Bank) happening in Uganda. Jan has taken an excellent picture and annotated it with the important facts about this project in a rural Uganda.
For more information about Jan, read this recent NY Times article about him, and of course subscribe to his blog, Future Perfect.
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20:40
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
The Universal Nut Sheller (UNS) is part of the Full Belly Project. It’s really an amazing story about a device that has had a direct impact on a number of African countries. The story goes that Jock Brandis, an American inventor, was on a trip to Mali and saw some women who had been shelling peanuts leaving them with bleeding hands. This spurred him on to create a device that would help end hunger.
(Watch a video of a pedal-powered one in action)
How does it work?
The process works by centrifugal force and friction. The Universal Nut Sheller is basically a concrete cone within a cone, open at the top and bottom, with the interior cone being solid. The interior cone, or rotor, rotates on a shaft and has an attached handle (Note: only one moving part!). The user turns the handle around fast enough to spin the nuts to the outside through centrifugal force. The nuts fall between the surfaces and are rolled and squeezed, allowing the nuts and shells to fall through to the bottom. This mix of nuts and shells is then winnowed out, the old fashioned way.
Reach and Impact
According to the Full Belly Project, this machine is being used in 12 African nations, including; Mali, Uganda, Malawi, DRC, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leon, Sudan and Zambia.
The nut sheller is being used to shell more than just peanuts. As new villages take up the device, they turn it towards their own diverse nut shelling needs, such as jatropha, neem nuts, shea nuts or coffee.
Most importantly, he Universal Nut Sheller costs about $50-75 dollars to make, depending on the price of local materials, and will serve the needs of a village of 200 to 1000 people.
Like two past projects that we’ve highlighted on AfriGadget, this one is encouraging. Both the recently profiled see-saw power machine (possibly), and the KickStart pumps are based on the belief that sustainable economic growth comes through empowering local entrepreneurs to start, or extend, their businesses. In fact, the plans for the UNS are free and downloadable.
(Via Kaushal)
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9:37
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
 The BBC is running a story on a young inventor, 23-year old Daniel Sheridan, who has designed a teeter-totter (see-saw) that can be used to power school classrooms in Africa. His ultimate goal is to see a whole playground of energy-creating equipment.
“The current need for electricity in sub-Saharan Africa is staggering. Without power development is extremely difficult. The potential for this product is huge and the design could be of benefit to numerous communities in Africa and beyond.”
The idea came about after travels to East Africa, where he taught at a school and was inspired by the students. Daniel developed the see-saw power design as part of his final year at Coventry University. He has calculated that five to 10 minutes use on the see-saw could generate enough electricity to light a classroom for an evening.
Some Thoughts
What would be more interesting would be to see this idea built out with local supplies, as Daniel is going to be doing soon in Uganda. Then, with the knowledge learned there, see if it could fall into the same model of micro-entrepreneurial devices that we see with the KickStart water pumps. Speaking of which, this also reminds me of the PlayPumps idea, which also has a lot of potential.
Daniel states, “The unique selling point of this product is that it is not intended as a profit-making design.” I can only hope that he means this as profit for him. Profit making on the ground by Africans of this type of design could be crucial for its long-term success.
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11:59
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
AfriGadget’s second monthly BBC/PRI interview with The World is now live. Juliana, one of the editors who also blogs at Afromusing, was interviewed this month. You’ll hear her start talking at about 17:15 in the podcast.
(I took this shot of Juliana while at DEMO, where we did a panel on tech in Africa)
It’s been a lot of fun to start sharing some of the stories and vision behind AfriGadget through the radio. Clark Boyd is a real pro, so it makes it easier for us amateur radio interviewees to figure out what we’re doing. (thanks Clark!)
The World’s tech podcasts are done weekly (Friday), you can find out more on their site and subscribe there. If you’re interested, you can also follow it through Twitter and Facebook.
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21:17
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
We hope you enjoy these pictures of toys from Kenya and Ghana. They are a sampling of the pictures on the AfriGadget flickr group. The materials used to make these toys are scrap metal, tins, wire, and pieces of leather.
Wire Bikes
Ghana
Colorful bikes
Spray can wheels
Red Dynamo
Wire Motor Bike from Kenya
Cars and Tractor
Tin Cars from Ghana
From Kenya:
Wire Landrover
Wire Tractor
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7:48
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Our friend Ken Banks of Kiwanja.net and NGOMobile wrote about the challenge of mobile phone charging in off grid Africa; noting that this solar powered charger could be one of the solutions. 
I quite agree; two years ago i bought a similar solar powered charger that cost $99. The charger pictured above is made by G24 innovations, and costs $20. This is just the kind of technology that AfriGadget likes, because it is not only quite handy to have, but it is empowering and well suited for off-grid rural areas in Africa, California or anywhere with sunlight for that matter. Ken explains it best…
In some rural areas, where the lack of reliable mains power might be the difference between making it worth owning a mobile or not, a small solar panel such as this could be a deal clincher. Of course, solar energy has been touted as a solution for charging mobile devices for years now, but what’s interesting about this is the cost. Suddenly, it actually seems possible. And by possible, what I really mean is affordable.
Read more about the device.
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20:17
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
What does it take, out there in the field, to get an AfriGadget story?
Well, this video that I took back in the summer of 2007 shows Hash (aka WhiteAfrican) hard at work getting the Africa’s Modular Machines piece that went up in AfriGadget last November. Yes, the sound quality and camera work are atrocious but sometimes, opportunity just presents itself.
I am happy to report that as you can see, he was busy bringing Firefox to the people as he did this.
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16:47
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
This one is not exactly AfriGadget, more like an AfriToy, but we love the story nonetheless. The video reporter Ruud Elmendorp visited the small village of Tabaaka, near Kakamega, in western province Kenya. Below is a video showing the master carvers at work, creating soapstone figures of The Simpsons characters. The carvings are available for online purchase through the CraftVillage website. Please click on the image below to view the video.
Al-Jazeera also covered the story last year, focusing on the economic boost of the Simpsons movie on the village, as it saw an increase in the number of orders for the carvings. It is the confluence of popular culture and African handicraft that we particularly enjoyed when it came to this story. If we had our way we would have soapstone carvings of Strongbad! One day.
PS: AfriGadget will have a monthly feature on The World Technology Podcast, which you can subscribe to here. The first issue is now posted. Many thanks to Clark Boyd, the AfriGadget team is quite excited about this.
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19:24
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
The Bamboo Bike, an endeavour that aims at building bicycles in a sustainable fashion using bamboo as the primary construction material, is a joint project run by Craig Calfree of Calfree Design, a high tech bicycle design firm based in California and The Earth Institute at Columbia University.
The bicycle is the primary mode of transport in Africa and it is used for everything from personal transportation to moving medicine and the sick to hospital. Sadly, the design used in most of Africa has not changed for the last 40 years to take into account the different ways in which the bicycle is used. In fact, most bikes in use in most of Africa today are based on a colonial British design tailored to individuals travelling short distances on smooth roads.
 
While making bike frames based on bamboo is not a new idea, most bamboo frame designs simply use bamboo for construction material in a traditional bike frame design. Leveraging the unique properties of bamboo such as its strength and flexibility to meet the specific needs of populations local to various parts of Africa is one of the primary rationale behind the Bamboo Bike project.
The team working on the Bamboo Bike project in the US, Ghana and Kenya among other locations have a interesting blog (last updated in the summer of 2007) that chronicles the struggles of the project team while on site in Africa.
Project gear including Bamboo Bikes and clothing is available on the Bamboo Bike and Calfree Design websites.
 
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19:27
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
We’re proud to announce a brand new design for AfriGadget! The old design was rather old and ugly, so thanks for putting up with it for the last 20 months. Actually, I think the reason that there are so many more RSS subscribers to AfriGadget than daily visitors can be attributed to how it looked… 
2 New Things:
You’ll notice two buttons just beneath the header. We’re working on a number of items, two of which we’re ready to unveil.
The AfriGadget Grassroots Reporting Project
We’re intent on getting more AfriGadget contributors from all over Africa. Part of that plan is to find potential editors and set them up with a mobile phone with which to take pictures and do interviews. If you know someone that would make a good fit, let me know.
The AfriGadget Store (phase 1)
The first phase of the store is making some AfriGadget gear (t-shirts and mugs) available to everyone (hint: you can customize any design and select any type of shirt/color to put it on). The next step is to create a full-featured store with some of the items that are made by the entrepreneurs shown on AfriGadget. This would include products, as well as plans.
One of the big goals here is to create a service that doesn’t just publish interesting stories about African micro-entrepreneurs, though we do plan on continuing that, but to also explore ways that we can be a conduit back to those very same people. This redesign already has our future plans for dealing with entrepreneurs built into it. Part of that is the future phases of the AfriGadget store, but we’re also looking at ways to partner with others and encourage direct investment into worthy entrepreneurs businesses.
Look for more on that in a future update. Until then, we’re just happy we have some new stuff to show you!
If you find any errors, which I’m sure there will be some, please leave a comment or shoot me an email.
Lastly, a special thanks goes out to Jared for making this site look so good.
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8:31
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Over the weeks since the first post we did on Dr. Cedrick Ngalande’s inexpensive power source for Africa, we’ve been emailing back and forth about his invention. Yesterday, he sent me a link to a video of his device on YouTube.
“The rotor moves slowly most of the times but does pick up at certain intervals. This process continues for many hours. Since the rotor is quite heavy (and hence more inertia) a small geared DC motor can be connected to the rotor to generate power for cell phones, $100 laptops, and other things in Africa. People can leave this thing to charge their phones/$100 laptops overnight.”
(more…)
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9:38
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
This is a continuation of Erik’s post on African Modular machines.
The video below shows how the machines are used in wood workshops to make design cutouts, carve out pieces for furniture and to split planks of wood. It is essentially the same machine pieces, motor, pulleys and frame, just customized for different uses. The customization is done in a small industry locally known as Jua Kali or Gikomba, where entrepreneurs like Mr. John Chege purchase them for use in small workshops like this.
When playing the video, please mute it, there is lots of noise from the machines.
(more…)
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10:04
From: AfriGadget
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We’ve written about young Malawian William Kamkwamba a couple of times here on AfriGadget, so it’s great to see him getting recognition in the WSJ! The article is titled “A Young Tinkerer Builds a Windmill, Electrifying a Nation“. Take a look at the video:
(more…)
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0:04
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Motorola plans to expand its business in rural areas of Africa. How? Using wind and solar powered base stations. Afrigadget previously wrote about this technology being implemented in Kenya, below is a short video showing that it is also in use in Namibia.
Via ApproVideo
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14:11
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Victor Kaonga points us to Dr. Cedrick Ngalande, a Malawian, who has built a prototype power source made specifically for Africa. It generates power using sugar and yeast for up to 8 hours at a time.
Mobile phones are big in Africa, however it’s a real challenge to power them. How about night time electrical lighting, rather than paraffin lamps. Of course, in Africa we can think of all types of applications that this device could be used for.
This gadget will be very ideal to developing countries like Africa where electricity is scarce. As you know, the growth of cell phone is fastest in Africa. The problem most Africans have is that they cannot charge those cell phones due to lack of electricity. Some have to walk long distances just to charge cell phones. My invention will make it easy for these people to charge their cell phones. Also, this generator can be used to charge $100 computers which are being introduced in Africa. It can also be used to charge or operate medical devices in rural Africa.
On a side note, I love seeing inventions made by Africans for Africans. It’s only by living and being a part of the everyday life that you get past the surface issues and start to really understand the real problems to be overcome. Personally, I love this story; it’s ingenious and African - just what we like here on AfriGadget!
If you have any stories, pictures or videos of ingenious African solutions, send them to us!
(hat tip: Soyapi)
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12:44
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
 There’s a really interesting story about a man in Kenya who claims to have created a plane from scratch.
Using a Volkswagen beetle engine, and aluminium sheets for the body, Mr Gachamba made a single seater plane.
He tested it out at an airstrip in Nyeri and sure enough, it took off. Caught up in the excitement of the minute, he decided to fly to his home in Mathira.
A few minutes into the ride, he noticed the engine was overheating. He decided to turn and in the process the low flying plane struck a tree top and crash landed. He was injured in the leg and has had a limp since.
(Read the rest of the article)
I’d love to see pictures of this plane, though I’m doubtful of there being any as this happened in the 70’s. Either way, a fun story. Right now he’s building his own Hummer from an old Datsun engine and “wheelbarrows, wheelchairs, metal pipes and other vehicle accessories”. At 75 years old he’s not slowing down at all!
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14:22
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
One of the things that I find most interesting in my travels around Africa is the similar uses of technology to meet the varied demands of different types of mechanics and workers. The particular case I’ve been thinking over is the use of a simple frame and different engines to meet a specific need.
Many of the same components are used from one machine to the next. The fabricators know that each machine has a different use, but that the parts used to make them unique are not that many.
For instance, below is an image of a painting machine.
The painting machine has an engine, an air compressor and a tank for holding the compressed air.
I’ve seen the same setup, switching out the air compressor for a circular saw, water pump, or a generator. In the same way, the compressed air tank can be switched out for a larger fuel-holding tank or some other machinery that fits the specific need.
Below is an image of the same type of machine, this one with the same setup, except that the compressor is used for tire repair instead of painting.
Generally, the engine and the frame are the mainstay. The engines used are primarily Briggs & Stratton, the old workhorses of Africa, though I’ve seen Honda trying to make headway in this market lately as well.
The machinery setup is a good example of low-cost fabrication using a modular setup. All of the local fabricators tend to use the same frame setup so that they can mix and match with each others work.
More pictures on the AfriGadget Flickr Group.
[Update: I’m currently going through my archive of pictures and videos for more machines like this. If you have some pictures of these types of machines, please send them my way.]
Another example:
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10:33
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Yahoo! News (among other sources) carries a story from October 21st about Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi of the Kano Plains of Nigeria who has built a working helicopter over the last 8 months using scrap aluminum and parts from a Honda Civic, an old Toyota and from the remains of a crashed Boeing 747.
This inventor has had no formal training in flying and his helicopter has never flown higher than 7 feet of the ground. In an interview, he talks about how the machine works:
“You start it, allow it to run for a minute or two and you then shift the accelerator forward and the propeller on top begins to spin. The further you shift the accelerator the faster it goes and once you reach 300 rmp you press the joystick and it takes off,”
Mubarak is ambitious however and has embarked on a new project to build a better helicopter that will be able to make 3 hour flights. He hopes to get support for his project from the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and other Nigerian government bodies.
 
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10:37
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
This post is dedicated to Blog Action Day, where thousands of blogs around the world unite to talk about one theme. This year it is the environment.
Simon Mwangi calls himself a mabati (sheet metal) blacksmith. He takes junk and creates beautiful metal animal sculptures. If you happen by his roadside shop on Ngong Road in Nairobi, you’ll see a number of crocodiles and if you’re lucky, a full sized giraffe.
If you’re in the market for a crocodile, which he sells primarily to hotels, be ready to pay 30,000 Kenya Shillings (about $450). They take about one week to make.
What’s remarkable about Simon, beyond the actual artwork that he fabricates, is that everything he does and works with is made from left over metal junk. Even the welding machines that his team uses are made by the team from leftover metal plates and copper wire. (See an example of the welder at this earlier AfriGadget post)
This is an excellent example of how Africans reuse and recycle to meet their needs. Many times their ingenuity creates thriving businesses, proving that entrepreneurship and environmental needs aren’t mutually exclusive.
(More images in the AfriGadget Flickr Group)
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20:59
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
The HAPV (Advertised as HAPPY) is a twist on the ‘horse and buggy’ mode of transportation, making this a donkey, cart, solar panel on a canopy FUV (Farm Utility Vehicle) that is quite ingenious and absolutely AfriGadget. A donkey drawn carriage is commonplace in many countries in Africa, and this retrofit by the organization Water and Wheel adds more functionality and utility especially suited for rural Africa.
Fitted with a solar panel that charges a 12 volt battery under the driver’s seat, the “HAPPY” becomes an independent, sustainable source of energy that powers cell phone connectivity, front and rear emergency lights and a small neon tube at night. Add a water filtration system, and the “HAPPY” doubles as a multi functional mobile business unit, that can empower an entrepreneurial owner, to generate income from it as a fresh water outlet, a mobile phone kiosk or a spaza shop – even after dark.
Read more about it here.
(Hat tip Mweshi)
Note: Erik Hersman (White African) was interviewed a few minutes ago on BBC, a podcast will be available in a day or two and we will be sure to share it here (link).
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7:21
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Most of the stories on AfriGadget are stories of work-based ingenuity. However, every once in a while you get an incredible story about someone who creates an amazing do-it-yourself “fun” item. In this case Wired is reporting about Cyril Mazibuko who creates his own home made paraglider:
Cyril is the only black South African currently registered with the sport’s ruling body. And it all started with a glider he made from plastic bags, purloined rope and baling wire, a glider that flew — sort of — though it both amazed and horrified the professional paragliders who saw it.
Read the full story at Wired
(hat tip Tyrell)
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11:36
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Ken Banks of Kiwanja.net is a mobile expert as it relates to the developing countries. He sends in a picture from his most recent trip to Uganda. 200 Ugandan Shillings per unit is equivalent to about $0.11.
Ken on the BodaPhone:
I met this phone operator off Kampala Road this afternoon, who was riding round on this bike. Luckily he was a fellow Liverpool supporter so we hit it off straight away – and he let me take a photo of his BodaPhone setup. Pretty neat, and with a spare battery to allow him to stay on the road longer. Uganda is really hotting up on the mobile front, with two new operators about to enter the market towards the end of the year.
Ken is quite active in this space and runs the very popular Social Mobile Group, found on both Facebook and on his site. He has also been interviewed in a story today on BBC that talks about the mobiles in Africa.
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3:55
From: AfriGadget
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While working in Naitiri, a small town in Western Kenya, I cam across a home made game of checkers. As you can see it’s made from soda tops and a piece of cardboard. I sat down to play and proceeded to lose very badly.
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17:13
From: AfriGadget
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Ingenuity, obviously, isn’t only limited to the African continent, as it is especially found in societies where access to resources is limited. While we’ve been able to witness lots of interesting innovations from other regions of the world that were born out of a lack of readily available solutions, we must also not forget that a few smart ideas were actually developed in Africa and have since then conquered the world.
One of such smart ideas is the Ventilated (Improved) Pit Latrine, in short: the VIP – which was developed as the “Blair Latrine” by Peter Morgan, who has been living and working in Zimbabwe for over 35 years, researching and developing water and sanitation technologies.
Diagram showing effect of vent pipe on functions of pit latrine (source)
The major advantage of the VIP over a normal pit latrine is that it comes with a ventilation pipe (covered with a durable fly screen on top) which reduces flies and odour. In the absence of other alternatives, the Ventilated Pit Latrine is considered reliable, which explains the success of this technology: over 500.000+ units of this type have been built in Zimbabwe alone and it has proven to work elsewhere around the world.
The VIP clearly isn’t the solution to sustainable sanitation as it comes with a few limitations, but it does function without water and has very low investment, operation and maintenance costs.
Next to some interesting experiments with different water pump systems such as the Blair hand pump (also known as the Zimbabwe Bush Pump) or the spiral water wheel pump, Peter is also active in the field of ecological sanitation and recently published a very interesting booklet titled “Toilets That Make Compost” where he writes about his experiences with compost toilets such as the Arborloo and the Fossa Alterna.
screenshot from Peter Morgan’s manual on how to build an Arborloo (PDF,~ 3,1MB)
While there’s no single sanitation concept that will work in all places around the world, the VIP for one is a proven technology which has been accepted by its users since 30 years.
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7:05
From: AfriGadget
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This is the walker most Ghanaian babies used to learn how to walk. Myself this is what I used to learn how to walk( Yes my mummy told me ).
For a baby to use it to learn how to walk it is very simple. The baby holds the horizontal bar at the top with the hands at both ends of the bar and he stands up on his/her feet and start pushing the walker. Two to three falls will get him or her to start being on his/her feet by him/her self and by the 7th to 8th falls, he/she should start moving the legs on his/her own and before you know it, your baby is walking.
This walker is simple, no ring bells around to keep the baby off focus on learning how to walk.
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20:27
From: AfriGadget
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Simon Kasiraba is one of many sausage vendors found in the cities and small towns throughout East Africa. He’s the prototypical micro-entrepreneur trying to make a living by supplying a need (food - conveniently available). He’s on AfriGadget because of the simple innovative solution that he employs to keep his food ready to be eaten at all times of the day - which is very important when you’re set up beside a bus stop.
He keeps the meat warm using steam, with a simple charcoal heater placed inside the body of the sausage cart. The water goes into the pipe on the side of the cart, and floods a water panel directly underneath the meat. When it gets hot, the steam keeps the sausages warm, yet juicy. The cart cost him 14,000 shillings (about $200). He sells each sausage for 10 shillings (about 0.14 cents).
Here is a video of Simon showing me his sausage heating cart:
Images of the sausage heating carts can be found in the AfriGadget Flickr image pool.
If you have any stories that would fit well on AfriGadget, contact us, we’d love to hear from you!
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19:28
From: AfriGadget
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 First off, I’d like to thank the thousands of readers who visit AfriGadget every week. It’s been great to see the amount of interest that innovation Africa-style engenders. I’d like to give a little update on what’s been happening and where we’re going with AfriGadget in the near future. If you’d like to help in some way, please contact me.
Some AfriGadget Groups
AfriGadget Flickr Group - We have an image gallery on Flickr that you can take part in. Tag your images “AfriGadget” and add them to the AfriGadget group.
AfriGadget Facebook Group - Just started this month, the AfriGadget Facebook group is a place that you can talk to other AfriGadget readers and find like-minded friends.
Website Redesign
This has been a long time coming. The current site has some problems that we’d like to “fix” via a redesign. We’ll still be using WordPress, but want to make it more accessible and increase the breadth of information available. Feedback indicates that people like the look and feel of the current site, so we’ll try and stay pretty true to what you see now.
There has been an ever increasing number of emails asking for more information on specific projects, as well as a great deal of interest from people who want to purchase some of the items that we’ve shown on AfriGadget. We’re going to be building in some of those features into the new site.
Helping Micro-Entrepreneurs
I’ve had a number of interviews by different media outlets over the last couple months, and one specific interview by a South African radio company really hit me. They asked, “How does AfriGadget help the Africans who are beings showcased?”. I didn’t have an answer - or, I did, but the answer was “not at all”.
In the new site, we would like to work with an organization like Kiva, and their partners, to create ways for people to invest in some of the entrepreneurs that we talk about. In the cases where it makes sense, we’ll also help the entrepreneurs sell some of their items via our website.
Growing AfriGadget
The website initiative is only one of the three that we’re planning for this year. If we can find the right partners, we’ll be announcing some projects that a couple AfriGadget editors will be leading that are, quite frankly, much more exciting and “big” than a website redesign. As we grow AfriGadget we’re looking for partners who can help us. Contact me if you’d like to know more about those initiatives!
All of us do AfriGadget on the side. The growth of the site that I have outlined above is meant to benefit the innovators in Africa, not those of us who manage and create content for this site.
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9:49
From: AfriGadget
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I found a story about a young Malawian who had built a windmill from scratch to help power the lights in his rural home. When I showed up at TED Global in Arusha in June, I had no idea that I would meet him. At thatfree ringtones for 1 minute. point, he hadn’t been introduced to the larger TED community, so I was this lone excited voice squawking about how thrilled I was to meet him.
2 Days later, William Kamkwamba was introduced to the TED community on stage:
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5:15
From: AfriGadget
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David Mwangi has run a roadside tree and plant nursery outside of Nairobi for four years. In Kenya, you have to work around the two seasons (unlike the 4 in the West). The rainy season where everything is fine, and the dry season where your plants will likely die. This gets even worse when a drought happens.
David had the idea to dig a ditch down the side of the road and channel that into two 2-meter deep water catchments. The water is used to support the plants during the dry season and he never runs out of water, even during a drought. He has also stocked the pulls with fish (Tilapia), that he and his workers eat. A third byproduct is that the rain water being diverted doesn’t further erode that part of the road.
It’s a lesson in simplicity married with low-tech ingenuity coming together for increased business profitability.
Here’s a short video, where one of my friends translates for David:
More pictures available at the Flickr AfriGadget group.
If you have any stories or pictures of African innovations and ingenuity, please contact us.
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22:54
From: AfriGadget
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I met the managers of Kickstart technology at the recent TED Global conference in Arusha, Tanzania. Kickstart’s patented technology bridges the gap between expensive industrialize equipment used to pump, squeeze or pack and all it’s products are human powered. This is a very important feature in Africa for the Base of the Pyramid (BOP) market, because it solves the issue of energy and cost for equipment used in agriculture, and construction.
Kickstart’s most popular product is an irrigation pump that uses the stepping motion you see in a work-out gym to move water hundreds of feet to irrigate land. Kickstart also has been able to sell several thousands of these products all across Africa, and has been approach by the United Nations to sell globally.
Below is the irrigation pump
Kickstart pressing pump for building construction
Below you can see a picture of a person squeezing seeds to make oil
Here is a little more about Kickstart from the organization’s website.
About KickStart
KickStart’s mission is to help millions of people out of poverty. We promote sustainable economic growth and employment creation in Kenya and other countries by developing and promoting technologies that can be used by dynamic entrepreneurs to establish and run profitable small scale enterprises.
Go to the organization website
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