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AfriGadget

July 30, 2007
5:15
Water Harvesting by Roadside Plant Nursery
» ‎ AfriGadget

Tags: Food

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.
July 25, 2007
22:54
Kickstart Technologies: irrigation, and cooking oil human-powered pumps
» ‎ AfriGadget

Tags: HowTo

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
July 17, 2007
7:14
Made From Scratch Model Airplane
» ‎ AfriGadget

Tags: Toys

Phillip Isohe is a metal fabricator in the jua kali, non-traditional industrial sector, in Kenya. In his spare time he builds models of airplanes and buses. This seems to be an extension of what many of us did while growing up in Africa - building wire, or tin can, cars. What’s most interesting is the excruciating attention to detail that he puts into each one. In fact, they each have motors with working lights, steering, engine and interiors.

Phillip had just sold one of his buses, so the only other one I have a picture of is only half-built (picture). However, he did have a finished and working model airplane. It was amazing to see how each piece, engine included, was built from scratch. It’s not every day that you see this kind of detail work on hobbies, no matter where you are in the world.

The models take him 30 days to make and goes for about 25,000/= ($370). That’s likely just his “starting price” though, and they probably sell for a good deal less when he really wants to move it.

Here’s a short video of the model plane:

More pictures:

More pictures like these can be found on the AfriGadget Flickr group.
July 02, 2007
12:06
Wind Powered Cell Phone Base Stations
» ‎ AfriGadget

Tags: energy

Photo courtesy of Bergey. Oct 26 2006 Dedication of the cell phone base station site in Laisamis, Kenya Africa.

AfriGadget appears to be on a roll with wind power, so lets continue the wave shall we?

The company WinAfrique designs and builds hybrid wind and diesel turbine systems for powering cell phone base stations. Kenya’s biggest wireless companies Safaricom and Celtel have contracted with WinAfrique.

…Safaricom contracted with Winafrique Technologies in Nairobi to design and supply pilot wind/diesel hybrid systems at three very remote base stations. The systems consisted of a Bergey 7.5 kW turbine on a 24 m (80 ft) SSV tower, sealed batteries, and an inverter. These sites were installed and monitored for one year. The results showed excellent reliability and diesel fuel savings of 70-95%. Based on these positive results, Safaricom has contracted for six more sites, and has many other wind/diesel sites in the planning stage.

Hybrid systems that utilize renewable energy such as wind and solar are making it possible to extend wireless service in remote areas that are not connected to grid power. You can read more about Safaricom’s use of wind powered cell phone base stations, and more here about Celtel’s.