Timbuktu Chronicles

Maker updates contd.

2012-03-12T06:00:00.001-04:00

Continuing our updates on developments in the maker movement: Firstly we start with Fritzing

"an open-source initiative to support designers, artists, researchers and hobbyists to work creatively with interactive electronics. We are creating a software and website in the spirit of processing and Arduino, developing a tool that allows users to document their prototypes, share them with others, teach electronics in a classroom, and to create a pcb layout for professional manufacturing."

Tune into the nycDIYbio channel for instructions on creating Glowing Green Bacteria

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Make magazine speaks to the disruptive nature of 3d printing:

The “Huxley,” RepRap model

There are a few technologies to emerge from the maker movement that have been more “disruptive” than the desktop 3D printer. One of the hallmarks of such game-changing ideas is often being met with skepticism, if not outright derision. When the RepRap project (short for “replicating rapid prototyper”) was announced in 2005, with the goal of creating an open source three-dimensional desktop printer that could replicate copies of itself and spark a revolution in democratized home manufacturing, many eyes were rolled. It seemed too early in the 21st century for such a self-replicator, too Pollyannish of an idea. But the concept was readily embraced by hardy hackers, and slowly, a revolution began gathering its cadre.

While over at PPI:

We need a “new economic strategy that stimulates production rather than consumption; saving rather than borrowing; and exports rather than imports.” While such a shift needs to happen, we need a conception of “producer society” that is somewhat wider than old-line manufacturing, which tends to be the image that comes to mind when talking “production.”

Yet, in some ways, a new producer society is already taking shape all across the country, driven by very real grassroots movements in tinkering, do-it-yourself (DIY) projects, entrepreneurship, and even manufacturing. This is not the producer society of auto assembly or equipment manufacturing. In rural Missouri, a Polish immigrant with a doctorate in physics has founded Open Source Ecology, which creates what it calls the “Global Village Construction Set,” dramatically lowering the barriers to farming, construction, and manufacturing. The idea has clear implications for developing countries, but for a place like the United States, with massive legacy infrastructure and deep pools of engineering talent, the idea of repurposing existing technology for lower cost and better quality is very attractive.

Hackaday highlights a Solar-powered RepRap:

Reprap mendel Running of Batteries powered by the sun. This Reprap Mendel is Running Ramps 1.3 with SD card add-on allowing it to to print without a computer plugged in. More information about the Electronics can be found @ Ultimachine.com Printing with biodegradable PLA made from Corn using only Sun power to print.

From Citzen Science:

In 2004, Christoper Lausted et al. out of The Institute for Systems Biology published a wonderful paper titled “POSaM: a fast, flexible, open-source, inkjet oligonucleotide synthesizer and microarrayer” complete with all the necessary schematics and assembly instructions(pdf linked). The design is quite impressive and extremely low cost using mostly off the shelf components. I have a feeling it was a bit ahead of its time and that with the advent of DIYbio could find new life as an active Open Source project.

The POSaM platform. (a) Overview. The complete inkjet printing system is enclosed in an air-tight acrylic cover, 61 × 91 × 122 cm. (b) View from above showing the array holder. One slide is shown secured by the vacuum check with room for 26 additional slides. (c) Front view showing the print/wash head. Five PTFE wash lines deliver acetonitrile, oxidizer and deprotecting acid in bulk. Six vials supply tetrazole and phosphoramidites to the inkjet print head. (d) Lower-front view of the inkjet print head showing droplets passing through the QC laser beam. The presence of a droplet produces forward-scattered light, visible as bright red flashes (arrowed).

And again courtesy of Citizen Quarterly a DIY Scanning Electron Microscope by Ben Krasnow

More from Open Source Ecology - Modular Power Cubes:

Power Cube Intro from Open Source Ecology on Vimeo.

And lastly from World Maker Faire 2011,paintable electronic circuits:

Butaro Hospital,Rwanda

2012-03-12T06:00:00.000-04:00

A Partners in Health joint project-Butaro Hospital:

In addition to the four basic services (maternity, internal medicine, surgery, and pediatrics),will include an emergency department, a full surgery ward with two operating rooms, a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), an intensive care unit (ICU), outpatient ophthalmology and gynecology services, an ear nose and throat clinic (ENT), and significantly expanded laboratory capabilities. The facility will feature modern measures for infection control including natural cross-ventilation through clerestories, secluded patients wards around courtyards, and an effective spatial triage system allowing for separation of patients based on their condition.

The vision for the hospital includes creating a scientific community of clinical and non-clinical staff alike, with the hope that people will travel far and wide to teach, learn, deliver care, and seek care at the new facility. In the future, Butaro District Hospital will be an example of how to achieve a modern hospital in rural Africa with an academic environment capable of delivering world-class medical care.

via the BBC
Images courtesy of the BBC

Proud to Be African Clothing

2012-03-11T06:00:00.000-04:00

From the UK, Proud to Be African:

...is a brand that seeks to produce T shirts, hoodys and other apparel that is comfortable, trendy and has positive images of Africa everyone can wear and relate to.

Although we’re based in London we have fans all around the world and hope to produce garments that people from all backgrounds can enjoy.

Proud to Be African Clothing aims to be about more than just T shirt's, hoodys, Childrens clothes and baby clothes. It aims to be more than just urban wear or casual wear, we aim to be a movement or a feeling; that warm, fuzzy feeling Africa evokes whenever she comes to mind!

TruSpot Contd.

2012-03-10T06:00:00.000-05:00

Techcentral reports on TruSpot covered earlier "Africa's Spotify":

Ikenna “Ike” Orizu is the founder and CEO of TruSpot, a service he describes as the “Spotify for Africa”. Truspot, which offers Africa-specific content, is run out of Texas, but will move to its conceptual birthplace, Nigeria eventually

On its growth:

Orizu says TruSpot has 89 000 active users a month — or “addicts”, as he calls users who use the service for more than an hour a day on average. There are also more than 35 000 subscribers to the site’s various radio stations. “We’re hoping to double the subscriber figure within the next month.” At launch, TruSpot focused only on Nigerian music, but Orizu says shortly thereafter “the dream got bigger” and the company decided to look at Africa as a whole. “It was hard to find Nigerian music online, and the same problem existed for the rest of Africa,” he explains.

More here

An Open Source Laser Sintering 3D Printer

2012-03-09T07:55:00.000-05:00

In Make:

Octocat Print from Andreas Bastian on Vimeo.
Additive rapid prototyping in plastic materials is becoming quite accessible to home and hobby users. If you’re a hobbyist on a typical budget wanting to rapid prototype in metal, however, you’re limited to subtractive methods, i.e. CNC machine tools like mills and lathes, and even those are not exactly “cheap.” Professional 3D printing services like Shapeways offer additive metal prototyping in metals like stainless steel and gold, but it’s extremely expensive. The technology their 3D printers use, called “laser sintering,” is fundamentally different from the RepRap-type fused-filament (“robot hot glue gun”) 3D printers at the “garage” end of the pricing scale.

In selective laser sintering (SLS), the object is built up in a bed of powder by a scanning laser beam that fuses tiny bits of the powder together, one layer at a time. After each layer of the model is fused, a fresh, thin, uniform sheet of powder is swept over the bed for printing the next layer.

More here
Images courtesy of Make

Rise of the 'maker movement'

2012-03-08T06:00:00.000-05:00

Al Jazeera reports:

The “maker movement” has been around since 2005, and has since spurred "do-it-yourself" or DIY mainstays such as Etsy, Creative Commons and open-source software. Some, however, credit the recent economic slowdown and a growing rejection of mass consumerism with bringing the maker ethic to the mainstream.

3D printers, one of the movement’s most noteworthy developments, can now create everything from buildings to human tissue. With the rise of DIY culture, these machines have become cheap enough for consumer use and could have many implications for nations in early stages of development.

In this episode of The Stream, we talk to Emeka Okafor, co-founder of Maker Faire Africa, and Bre Pettis, CEO and co-founder of MakerBot Industries.

More here

PromoPrint Ventures

2012-03-07T06:00:00.000-05:00

Within a HP article on the tenacity and resourcefulness of Nigerian entrepreneurs Randall Kempner highlights Promoprint:

Patricia Ojora, who runs PromoPrint Ventures Limited, a company that specializes in designing and manufacturing corporate and personal gifts. After practicing as a Nigerian lawyer, Patricia realized her true calling to be an entrepreneur and opened PromoPrint. I had a chance to visit her printing facility in the neighborhood of Ebute Metta. Operating out of an old house, Ojora has built the premier shirt printing business in Lagos. Starting with small orders from friends and old business contacts, she now focuses on serving major corporate clients. (If you see anyone wearing a Guinness® Beer T-shirt in Nigeria, Patricia's team likely printed it.)

Despite the fact that Promoprint, like most firms in Lagos, has to generate its own electricity and supply its own water, Patricia has been able to build a thriving firm. In the past year, Ojora's firm has experienced nearly 100 percent revenue growth, and she is now considering another location to support future expansion.

More here

Volcanoe Express | A transport company

2012-03-06T06:00:00.000-05:00

The BBC profiles Olivier Nizeyimana founder of Volcanoes Express, a bus company:

Image courtesy of the BBC

When Olivier Nizeyimana was a student, the journey to Rwanda's National University would sometimes take him ages so he thought it would be a good idea to start a bus company that made punctuality one of its core values... In 1999, he launched his Volcanoes Transport Company."I had only one route. Then I've been expanding all the way. Now we have a really big company which is networking all the towns of the southern region of Rwanda, linking them with the capital, Kigali," he said.

On the company's growth:

The entrepreneur believes that at the moment his business is worth more than $3m."When I started, I had four staff with myself and now I have about 250,"

More here

Building an Anti Theft System - Peterson Mwangi

2012-03-05T06:00:00.000-05:00

From Afrigadget:

In Nyeri, Kenya a young man named Peterson Mwangi has created a way to start and switch off a car engine, via an SMS command from his cell phone. This is a lot like Morris Mbetsa’s anti-theft vehicle system using SMS of a couple years ago.

Steamed Plantain Pudding, Nigerian style

2012-03-04T06:00:00.000-05:00

From Kitchen Butterfly:

Image courtesy of Kitchen Butterfly

Ukwaka can be breakfast food, served with hot, milky corn pap or oats. It could be a snack. Or lunch. Or dinner. Best of all, it is the perfect remedy for overripe plantains, as banana bread is for brown-speckled, soft bananas. Essentially, you take extremely sweet plantains, blend them with water, onions and chili peppers, season with some salt and dried crayfish if you wish and then bring them together with a sprinkling of polenta and some vegetable or palm oil. Once the batter is ready, you ladle it into ramekins or gently fold banana leaves into a cone sealing off base and top and then ‘waterbath’ them (like you do for creme caramel/brulee) for half an hour or more, till the puddings are firm.

More here

Cfinder Malawi

2012-03-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

How we made it in Africa interviews the founders of Cfinder budding software engineers Kondwani Chimatiro and Daniel Chiwinga:

Image courtesy of biztechafrica

Give us an overview of cfinder
Cfinder is a search engine that aims to centralise Malawian information. In Malawi there is a lot of information that only exists in hard copy, such as academic materials and books. We will scan this material and it will be available on cfinder.

How did the idea for cfinder came about?
We are university students studying Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at Mzuzu University. We thought of contributing something to Malawi and after we evaluated different ideas, we opted to develop a search engine.

More here

The Grain Amaranth

2012-03-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

The New Agriculturist highlights the grain amaranth:

Image courtesy of New Agriculturist

The grain is rich in lysine, an amino acid, making it a good source of protein. It is also rich in vitamins A, C, and E and in folic acid, as well as minerals such as calcium, iron, potassium and phosphorous. Once cooked, it is 90 per cent digestible.

More here

Why This Nigerian Movie Mogul Ditched YouTube

2012-03-01T06:00:00.000-05:00

Sarah Lacy writing in Pandodaily:

Jason Njoku doesn’t like being anyone’s bitch.

Image courtesy of HBS Africa

As I learned the last time I saw him– over machetes in Nigeria– that includes vigilante mobs. But that also includes YouTube, Amazon Web Services, and US-based video ad networks. And those are the people causing him the most problems since we last spoke.

Continuing...

Iroko does it all: They roam the markets of Alaba cutting deals with independent film producers, they scrub the content for remove copyrighted content, they subtitle it, they enter all the metadata, they convert it from outdated formats, they enter all the relevant information in a IMDB-like database, and upload it for hundreds of millions of people in the Nigerian diaspora to rabidly consume. (That’s him haggling with producers above; Njoku is on the right.) Until a few months ago, he let YouTube do the rest. He started a turn-key YouTube channel, that handled the cost and challenges of serving up gigabits of video every month. They handled ad sales. And even some distribution, putting Nollywood movies in some genre lists. When I last saw Njoku in Nigeria that was working well. He was doing eight million streams a month, and on a $1 million revenue run-rate. But since then, his traffic has soared, and the relationship soured. In Njoku’s view, YouTube has become so maniacal about pleasing Hollywood and doing original, high-level US-centric programming that they just didn’t care about what someone like Iroko was doing.

More here

Afrinnova - Startup Accelerator

2012-02-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

Afrinnova aims to:

...to create more innovative entrepreneurial ventures through proper guidance and mentorship in collaboration with the best entrepreneurial minds in the world.

Afrinnova is about moving African entrepreneurship from opportunism to value innovation and building new ecosystems based on ethical values

Divine Ndhlukula founder of Securico

2012-02-28T12:51:00.000-05:00

Mfonobong Nsehe writing in Forbes:

Divine Ndhlukula, a Zimbabwean national, is the founder and Managing Director of SECURICO, one of Zimbabwe’s largest security companies. The Harare-based outfit is a market leader in the provision of bespoke guarding services and cutting-edge electronic security solutions.

Ndhlukula has done remarkably well. In less than 15 years of doing business, SECURICO has achieved a number of significant feats: The $13 million (revenues) company now has more than 3,400 employees – 900 of whom are women. The company was also the first security outfit in Zimbabwe to achieve an ISO (International Organization for Standardisation) certification. Last December the company was the winner of the prestigious Legatum Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship...[continue reading]

Kenya's Startup Boom

2012-02-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

Technology Review's David Talbot writes:

Image of Shimba Technologies Jackie Cheruiyot courtesy of David Talbot

Erick Njenga, a 21-year-old college senior wrapping up his business IT degree at Nairobi's Strathmore University, has a gap-toothed grin and a scraggly goatee. A mild-mannered son of auditors, he didn't say much as we tucked into a lunch of grilled steak, rice, and fruit juice at an outdoor café amid the din of the city's awful traffic. But his code had done the talking. Last year Njenga and three classmates developed a program that will let thousands of Kenyan health workers use mobile phones to report and track the spread of diseases in real time—and they'd done it for a tiny fraction of what the government had been on the verge of paying for such an application. Their success—and that of others in the nation's fast-growing startup scene—demonstrates the emergence of a tech-savvy generation able to address Kenya's public-health problems in ways that donors, nongovernmental organizations, and multinational companies alone cannot...[continue reading]

Ayo | Android App Board Game

2012-02-26T06:00:00.000-05:00

AfriApps presents Ayo:

What is it?

It is a popular strategy board game that originated in West Africa.
How does it work?

The board consists of two rows of six houses, one side for each player. The game begins with four seeds in each of the twelve houses, totaling 48. You then decide from which house you will take all four seeds for distributing, one in each house, counter-clockwise. The objective of the game is to win holes (called houses) on the board. To win houses, you must capture as many seeds as you can during each round.

More here

The Making of Nigeria’s Film Industry

2012-02-25T06:00:00.000-05:00

Andrew Rice writing in the NYTimes:

Credit: Andrea Frazzetta for The New York Times

Twenty years after bursting from the grungy street markets of Lagos, the $500 million Nigerian movie business churns out more than a thousand titles a year on average, and trails only Hollywood and Bollywood in terms of revenues. The films are hastily shot and then burned onto video CDs, a cheap alternative to DVDs. They are seldom seen in the developed world, but all over Africa consumers snap up the latest releases from video peddlers for a dollar or two. And so while Afolayan’s name is unknown outside Africa, at home, the actor-director is one of the most famous faces in the exploding entertainment scene known — inevitably — as “Nollywood.”

More here

Warrantege a Group Grain Storage Solution

2012-02-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

Agfax highlights an interesting solution to the crop storage problem:

Image courtesy of RIU

Maize farmers are often forced by poverty to sell their crop when prices are lowest. But in Rwanda, a group of 60 farmers are among the first to benefit from a system called warrantage which is enabling them to earn double the normal price paid by traders at harvest time. Under the system, farmers deposit their maize in a group storage shed and can receive 60 per cent of the value of their stored crop as a low-interest loan...[continue reading]

Arthur Zang | Medical Tablet Innovator

2012-02-23T06:00:00.000-05:00

Mfonobong Nsehe writing in Forbes:

Image courtesy of RN

Arthur Zang, a 24 year-old Cameroonian engineer, has invented the Cardiopad, a touch screen medical tablet that enables heart examinations such as the electrocardiogram (ECG) to be performed at remote, rural locations while the results of the test are transferred wirelessly to specialists who can interpret them. The device spares African patients living in remote areas the trouble of having to travel to urban centers to seek medical examinations.

According to Zang, the Cardiopad is “the first fully touch screen medical tablet made in Cameroon and in Africa.” He believes it is an invention that could save numerous human lives, and says the reliability of the pad device is as high as 97.5%. Zang says he invented the device in order to facilitate the treatment of patients with heart disease across Cameroon and the rest of Africa. So far, several medical tests have been carried out with the Cardiopad which have been validated by the Cameroonian scientific community.

More here

Chicken Republic

2012-02-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

CP-Africa profiles Chicken Republic founded by Deji Akinyanju:

Akinyanju heads one of Nigeria’s fastest growing retail chains valued at about $120 million. With about $2 million (N320 million) in seed funding raised from family and friends, he initially had a franchise deal with Chicken Licken, South Africa but quickly established his own brand Chicken Republic. In 2003, he opened a bakery outlet, Butterfield Bakery (a South African brand), which soon became Nigeria’s largest bakery. Deji also own Reeds Thai Restaurant in Lagos and the St. Elmos Pizza franchise in Nigeria...[continue reading]

Using OpenMRS to build eHealth Nigeria

2012-02-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

Wired reports:

Image courtesy of eHealth Nigeria

...“If you’ve got a barely literate medical technician, who only knows how to use a microscope to look for Malaria and fill in a form, you can’t just put a fancy computer in front of him and expect him to use it.”

The answer is to use technology that fits the environment — or at least comes close to fitting. Under the aegis of their nonprofit, eHealth Nigeria, Castle and Thompson (founders of eHealth Nigeria ) have built a digital records system meant to eventually serve healthcare facilities across the region, but it doesn’t use the sort of specialized health care software in U.S. or even everyday database software. There’s no Kaiser software. And no Microsoft. The system is based on OpenMRS, an open source health records system designed specifically for use in underdeveloped regions.

First created in 2004, OpenMRS is now used in countries across the globe, including Rwanda, Mozambique, Haiti, India, China, and the Phillipines. As Karlyn and others point out, the platform is hardly reinventing healthcare in the poorer parts of these countries, but it is having some success — eHealth Nigeria being a prime example. “It’s really just a drop in the bucket — but that’s important,” Karlyn tells Wired. “But they’re building confidence in the system, demonstrating how change can happen. That attracts resources, and eventually, that makes a difference.”

OpenMRS began as a research project spanning Indiana University and Eldoret, Kenya’s Moi University. Paul Biondich and Burke Mamlin, two physicians and investigators at Indiana’s Regenstrief Institute, had spent time in Kenya, where a local health institution was using Microsoft Access to help support HIV care, and they saw first hand that the database wouldn’t suit the project at hand. OpenMRS was their response.

More here

Tiwani Contemporary Gallery

2012-02-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

The BBC reports on Tiwani Contemporary a gallery co-founded by Ayo Adeyinka of Tafeta & Partners:

A new gallery which has opened in London. Tiwani focuses on contemporary African art in all its forms. It's run in partnership with the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos and its first exhibition - The Tie That Binds Us - showcases the work of five prominent Nigerian artists. It includes not only paint-on-canvas and photo journalism but a range of sculpture and one collection which uses sound and video to portray the colorful chaos of Lagos city.

Sasini Agro Products

2012-02-19T06:00:00.000-05:00

From Kenya:

Image courtesy of the East African

Sasini is one of the leading tea and coffee producers in Kenya. The Company is quoted on the Nairobi Stock Exchange (N.S.E.)Through various wholly owned subsidiary companies Sasini operations cover tea, coffee, dairy livestock, horticulture, tourism and export activities.

via Securities.com

Luminaa Fashion

2012-02-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

In Ladybrille:

Luminaa, for the woman who radiates from within. The brand is a New York based label founded in 2008. Lumina’s collection of skirts and dresses has a soft architectural style with timeless beauty, modernity with a bit of an edge. In September 2010, the label made its runway Spring 2011 collection debut at the New Face of Fashion event at the Hiro Ballroom in New York. “The woman who wears Luminaa is intelligent, confident and possesses an understated sexiness,” explains Dorothy Williams, a Liberian-American and the brain behind the label. Williams wants clothes that have a comfortable elegance and accentuates a woman’s body in a refined way.