Timbuktu Chronicles

David | Toymaker

2013-06-19T06:37:00.001-04:00

Niti Bhan reporting in Prepaid Economy:

Image courtesy of Niti Bhan

This is David, he’s an apprentice at the local furniture workshop. But since he was a young boy he has dreamed of building toy cars, trucks and other vehicles. Now, he scrounges around for scrap materials and builds these beautiful scale model toys in his spare time...[continue reading]

RLG Communications

2013-06-18T06:00:00.000-04:00

In Ghana founded by Roland Agambir:

RLG Communications is a computer and hand-set manufacturing company, and one of the first indigenous African companies that assembles laptops and mobile phones:

African Furniture - Built for the World

2013-06-17T06:00:00.000-04:00

Trish Lorenz writing in the FT:

Hamed Ouattara image courtesy of David Crookes

African furniture is undergoing a transformation. Forget village handicrafts; today’s designs are contemporary, high-end and beginning to sport “Made in Africa” branding. They are also a growing presence in both local and overseas markets.

The continent’s creative industries are on the rise, boosted by a buoyant economy and emerging middle class with a growing disposable income. The sub-Saharan economy, according to the World Bank, is likely to increase by more than 5 per cent over the next three years, outperforming the global average. Consumer spending is strong, but the question is whether wealthy Africans are willing to invest in homegrown design over international luxury brands.

Joëlle le Bussy is a designer of French Senegalese heritage who has lived in Dakar, Senegal, for 30 years. “When I first moved here I couldn’t find any furniture to my taste,” she says. “Everything with a contemporary feel was imported and I wanted something that was made in Senegal.”

More here

The Rise of the 254Makertrons and Chumabot I

2013-06-16T06:00:00.000-04:00

iHub's Jessica Colaço reports on the nurturing of a maker group, the 254Makertrons. Please stay tuned these folks are awesome:

Liz with the Picopter Photo credit: @whiteafrican

As a Mobile and Robotics Tech Evangelist in Kenya, I have been mentoring and working with a group of 4 students from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and the Technical University of Kenya for the last 3 months. These students are passionate, inspirational and eager to learn. They are natural innovators and makers – Festus, Hezron, Elizabeth and Muuo.

From Left: Hezron, Festus and Elizabeth Photocredit: Festus

In their own words:

“We came up with a ‘Picopter’ which is basically a quadcopter similar to all the other flying drones we’ve seen before with one important difference – all the processing, from reading the sensors to computing exactly how much power to give each motor – is handled by a Raspberry Pi.Thus the Raspberry Pi acts as the central “Brain” of the quadcopter with arduino as the Slave controller. The Tasks of the Pi are to deal with logic, control and RC input processing whereas the arduino is used as an interface board for Pi, to read RC inputs and output motor control signals.”

More here

After the break the Chumabot I

254Makertrons from iHubNairobi on Vimeo

Farm Shop | Agricultural Supply Chain Service

2013-06-15T06:00:00.000-04:00

In Kenya:

Farm Shop is building a franchise network of agro dealers located in rural, underserved areas of Kenya. Farm Shop says its retail shops are clean, modern, and professionally managed. The business wants to increase the earnings and productivity of Kenyan farmers by providing them with high quality products, services and information. Madison Ayer and Farouk Jiwa, founders of Farm Shop, told How we made it in Africa’s Dinfin Mulupi about how they want to transform smallholder farming in Kenya...[more here]

3D Printed Medcine

2013-06-14T06:00:00.000-04:00

From TED:

Chemist Lee Cronin is working on a 3D printer that, instead of objects, is able to print molecules. An exciting potential long-term application: printing your own medicine using chemical inks.

Image from the Cronin Research Group

Sakaramenta Bicycle Carts

2013-06-13T06:00:00.000-04:00

A Bid Network profile:

Sakaramenta develops low cost and strong quality design models that respond to people’s needs. Transport becomes cheaper, higher in volume and more flexible. From a health perspective it is better to push 230 kg then carry 40kg on your head. Models such as the Tenga Car make it possible to sell more products at various locations. People can become a transporter without doing a big investment like a car or a truck, but just by buying a bicycle cart.

An expanding range of products:

Sakaramenta expanded their product range with playground, school and hospital equipment. Nowadays a full equipped operating factory in Blantyr, where over 20 well qualified Malawian employees make high quality products.

After the jump a video on the companies ambulance products:
from Africa Interactive on Vimeo.

The 'Danfo Reloaded' game

2013-06-12T06:00:00.000-04:00

From mobile media company Pledge 51:

“Danfo Reloaded” is the second generation of our popular mobile game title “Danfo”, which garnered over 100,000 downloads in less than 6 months of going online. In the game, players get a chance to play as Kunle, a Danfo (local parlance for privately owned commercial buses) driver who is in dire straits. He has eight (8) days to raise 60,000 naira for a down payment on his own bus or else he will be back on the streets.

via Otekbits

Divine Masters - An Agribusiness

2013-06-11T06:00:00.000-04:00

A How We Made It profile:

Divine Masters Limited is a Uganda-based business involved in the production and trade of soya beans, maize and rice. The company was started in 2007 by entrepreneur Orisa Raphael Jawino and currently works with 12,000 out-grower farmer families...its own central farms in the Tororo District of eastern Uganda, which produced over 500 tonnes of soya beans, 2,000 tonnes of maize and 5,000 tonnes of rice crops last year.

On its founding:

“Originally we started with trading in grains and legumes and, by 2008, we realised that there was a big gap in the supply of soya beans in the country and the demand was so high whereas the supply was low,” said Jawino. “So we decided now to go into production of soya; that is growing it ourselves. We opened up farms and as time went on we also incorporated out-growers. This has grown over time and today we are working with 12,000 farmer families.”

More here

Buki Akib | Designer

2013-06-10T06:00:00.000-04:00

From Another Africa:

FELA Collection 2011

Akib draws inspiration from her childhood, growing up in the hustle of Lagos. The vibrant life of the city markets, the rich and colourful ensembles of the local belles & dandies and above all, the historical and traditional heirloom of her native country of Nigeria, all served as catalysts for her vocation towards fashion.

With her eponymous Menswear label, Buki Akib captures the essence and cultural complexity of this microcosm by crafting outlandish silhouettes that seem to embody the spirit of modern Africanism.

Intricately ornate monochromatic knitwear, metallic leather panels, high waist quilted pants, augmented patchwork fur coats and oversized boxing shorts are all part of Akib’s idiosyncratic signature style.

More here

Maxwell Collins Omondi and his Voting Machine

2013-06-09T06:00:00.000-04:00

Innovate Kenya reports on the work of maker, Maxwell Collins Omondi:

His voting machine, a master piece of invention and electric work, is carefully placed in the bedroom. Upon the question where he is now sleeping we just receive a chuckle. Maxwell is not a student at some elite university with endless resources available to him. This becomes very apparent when we squeeze into the small bedroom, carefully listening to his explanations. He does not have any professional help nor is he provided with tools and equipment. Instead, he uses scrap materials and simple electrical wires to teach himself what he needs to know for his new projects and does not stop until he has succeeded. Maxwell admits that some parts of the voting machine he destroyed up to five times in order to build something new that would function better.

Not a space ship, although equally as complex: The voting machine The voting machine is a light sensitive apparatus that integrates the entire voting process into one circuit. First, the voter’s hand is scanned for ink, to detect whether the person has already voted. If the hand if ink free it gets marked with special ink. Then, an individualized voter chip and fingerprint test activates the actual voting process. The way the machine is set up right now, it allows you to vote between two different people or options. Once the voting has been completed an automatic tallying system adds up the votes AND has the ability to send the information to a centralized tallying centre. This helps to reduce the chances of fraud and many of us may wish this system will be used during the next Kenyan election. However, this is not the end of the story. Maxwell also proudly describes how differently abled people can cast their votes using voice recognition alone. Braille voting tabs even allow the blind to cast their votes independently.

More here
After a video Maxwell discusses his work (in LUO)
Images courtesy of Innovate Kenya

Kushn Footwear

2013-06-08T06:00:00.001-04:00

Over at OneNigerianBoy:

Kushn (covered earlier) is proud to introduce their new shoe collection, handmade in Cape Town, South Africa. South African leather is combined with hand-woven Kente cloth, produced in Ghana. Kushn products are designed by Cape Town based duo Greer Valley and Themba Mntambo and made in collaboration with independent, experienced leather artisans with the best materials sourced from African suppliers. For accent, we use a combination of African print fabrics and woven textiles for their bold colours, geometric prints and interesting textures. The Kente cloth used is sourced in Ghana, and bought from individual weavers using their own looms.

A Gathering of Africa’s Tech Hubs

2013-06-07T06:00:00.000-04:00

Indigo Trust reports on an Afrilab Gathering at Re:publica Berlin 2013:

image courtesy of Afrilabs

The definite highlight of attending Re:publica was the gathering of African Tech Hubs taking place there, organised by AfriLabs. Having recently appointed a new Director Tayo Akinyemi, their role is to strengthen collaboration between Africa’s tech hubs, creating a Pan-African movement and creating mutual benefit by working collectively.

All interested Stakeholders including hub founders, managers and funders met for 2 days before the conference. There were hub representatives from right across the continent, including Activ Spaces, iHub, NaiLabs, Hive Colab, Habaka, KINU, ICE Cairo and Addis, Wennovation, Banta Labs, iLab, RLabs, Co-Creation Hub and Bongo Hive...[continue reading]

After the jump an Indigo Trust presentation on "Why Foundations support Hubs"

Republica technology innovation hubs from Loren Treisman

Beyond hand pumps — African Makers

2013-06-06T06:00:00.000-04:00

Rowan Moore writing in medium:

image courtesy of Medium

On failed helicopter interventions:

...though borehole hand pumps are still the most common delivery method used for water projects in rural Africa, most of them stop working within a few years of operation. One study in Mali found that 90% of hand pumps failed within a year! The handpump may be an innovation Moises and his neighbors previously went without, but that alone doesn’t count for much. True innovation requires a different model, with training for maintenance and repair, and ready access to spare parts, or maybe something different altogether—above all, something that solves the problem at hand.

Where real innovation comes from:

The best examples of innovation in Africa often come from local people who can anticipate which technologies will work and which will break, which ideas will be adopted and which will not.One great example of this is a Nigerian surgeon named Oluyombo Awojobi, who founded ACE Medicare Clinics. In trying to run a full-service hospital in an area with erratic electricity, he came up with some unusual ideas: using a car jack as a mechanical lift to bring patients onto the operating table, or using a bicycle to power the hospital’s blood centrifuge. In the photo at the top of this post, a woodcarver in Mozambique studies a plastic gear from a computer’s CD drive before carving a replica out of ebony wood. This won’t solve the problem of a deficient supply chain for spare computer parts, but at least the computer will work.

We live at a time when it has become abundantly clear that the “hand pump” school of innovation — blindly transplanting a technology from place to place — doesn’t work. But there is an entire ecosystem of African investors, entrepreneurs, makers, and activists helping to shape the future of industry, technology, and social enterprise throughout the continent. And increasingly, African “trickle-up” technology like mobile banking is taking root around the world. This ecosystem is embodied by initiatives like Maker Faire Africa, a yearly convention highlighting design and inventions from all over Africa, and the Innovation Prize for Africa, a $100,000 award honoring local solutions aimed at the continent’s most intractable problems.

More here

"Made in Medina"

2013-06-05T06:00:00.000-04:00

"Made in Lagos" next? Aline Mayard writing in Wamda:

Famous Moroccan city guide Made in Medina has now expanded to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Beirut and now Bruxelles, Belgium. So how did a content company launched in Marrakech manage to build a global brand?

In 2005, Stéphane Gandibleux was a young entrepreneur building his web agency, Maroc Création, in Marrakech when he decided to create a city guide, named Made in Marrakech, as a side-project with some of his colleagues. In 2007, Gandibleux decided to take his website to the next level by having a dedicated full-time team and by selling ad space to local shopkeepers. The company took its time, went step by step, and made a name for itself. Two years later, the website was profitable...[continue reading]

BioDC Genset

2013-06-04T06:00:00.000-04:00

From maker, Dominic Wanjihia:

This I call a Bio-DC Genset.The principle is very simple. Generators / Internal Combustion Engines are not very efficient ... less than 30%, and consume huge amounts of fuel ... or gas in this case. For this, i have designed the engine to drive other agro equipment such as chaff cutter, hammer mill, water pumping, etc, that are only required to run for an hour or so daily. Coupled through a twin V-Belt pulley to the same engine is an automotive alternator. Whilst doing the agro chore, the alternator simultaneously charges batteries. These can then run domestic lights and appliances on DC or AC through an inverter...Due to the scale of the automotive industry globally, automotive alternator are cheap, robust, extremely efficient and can easily be repaired by the local auto mechanic ... — at Lorengelup, Lurkwel River Basin, Lodar, Kenya.

Shenzhen is Like Living in a City-Sized TechShop

2013-06-03T06:00:00.000-04:00

Over at HackThings:

Imagine a Costco-sized warehouse densely packed with 10×10 stalls dedicated to every conceivable piece of the global electronics supply chain. Now imagine a building with 6 floors of that. Now imagine 10 buildings like that. That begins to describe the electronics farmer’s market that is Huaqiangbei, located literately across the street from HAXLR8R in Shenzhen.

Oscilloscopes and multimeters, connectors of every shape and variety, LCDs and LEDs, motors, wheels and buttons, resistors, capacitors, miles of USB cables and row upon row of copper tape, soldering paste and every manner of specialized glue. Hundreds of stalls each with hundreds of components organized and displayed for browsing. You may never have seen a reel of PCB components for loading into pick-and-place machines. At Huaqiangbei you’ll see thousands upon thousands of them.

It’s naive to think of labor costs as China’s chief advantage in hardware manufacturing. The main advantage of being at the center of the supply chain is the iteration speed it permits. Need to find a particular part to fit a particular housing? Just blew a board and need a replacement part? Looking for a variation of a certain component? Then literally walk across the street and go get it. Even if you’re in the heart of the Silicon Valley sitting inside a TechShop that’s not possible. Looking for a segmented LED display? How about browsing through a case full of 75 different ones on the spot. Not sure about using the part in production? Talk to the factory rep and maybe jump in a car to see the factory line.

More here

David Sengeh | Maker Extraordinaire

2013-06-02T06:00:00.000-04:00

From Sierra Leone:

David is currently a first-yr Ph.D candidate at the MIT Media Lab. His research in the Biomechatronics Group focuses on the design of comfortable prosthetic sockets and wearable interfaces. His work is at the intersection of medical imaging, material science, human anatomy, computer-aided design and manufacturing.

He is the President and co-founder of Global Minimum Inc. (GMin), an international NGO that has distributed over 15,000 mosquito nets in Sierra Leone. Currently, GMin’s main project is Innovate Salone, the first-ever competition created to foster a culture of innovation among high-school students in Sierra Leone.

David is a co-founder of one of Popular Mechanics’ Innovators of the Year 2009, Lebone Solutions Inc. – a company that won $200,000 from the World Bank to produce microbial fuel cells in Africa.

He also owns a clothing design company called Nyali Clothing. The business has over 10 employees who focus on designing Sierra Leonean inspired clothing. He has worked in Zambia, Namibia, Dubai and other locations on various projects on education, health care delivery, and medical device design. He is interested in the idea of using technology and innovation to drive development in developing nations.

More here

The Maker Movement Disrupts Brands, Provides Opportunities

2013-06-01T06:00:00.000-04:00

Jeremiah Owyang writes:

3d printed wood at Maker Faire 2013, Image courtesy of Jeremiah Owyang

Those involved in the maker movement are creating their own goods and products, using recycled materials, or improving on existing products. Some are selling the goods to each other, some trade, and some simply just use for their own personal usage. They use technology, skill, community, and massive fairs to connect and grow. So what are the disruptions to corporations and brands by the maker movement?

Brands are disrupted by the Maker Movement.

Technology empowers the maker movement. The movement is already connected on digital communication channels, see Make magazine, social networks and online marketplaces like Etsy that enable individual artisans to sell, trade, or buy unique goods. Furthermore, the birth of 3D printing is spurring on a new class of goods created beyond jewelry and toys as furniture or home designs emerge

Several key industries are ripe for disruption.. Energy can be disrupted from biomass converter creates energy from leaves, walnut shells, from a variety of solar solutions. Also, consumer goods, industrial goods, toys, media, consumer electronics, can be impacted from 3D printers, a call out section directly below. Additionally, even in dense living, food supply chain be impacted as home gardens and solutions become more available.

The maker movement is accelerating. Having attended a few of these events, I was surprised by the sheer volume of attendees yesterday. As technology becomes mainstay for future generations who are all connected and learning to use technology, our next generation will be more adapt at creating –rather than consuming. In many ways, this is just a swing back to the old village ecosystem where every family had a key skill: smith, baker, cook, and beyond, Yet now, we’re not bound by geographic limitations of knowledge, goods, or materials.

More here

Ashanti Designs

2013-05-31T06:00:00.000-04:00

Design Indaba on Ashanti Designs:

Aiming to conserve African heritage by encouraging the use of traditional techniques, its artisans preserve the skills of their forbearers. They use a vast fabric range to make up cushions, beanbags, carpets and lampshades to client request. Joining forces by connecting customer and culture, Ashanti extends market facilities and support to rural artisans, promoting authentically inspired, sustainably sourced materials.

An Eco-Craftsmanship & Eco-Artisanship Holiday School

2013-05-30T06:00:00.000-04:00

In Aburi, Ghana founded by Golda Addo:

The Eco-Craftsmanship & Eco-Artisanship Holiday School, makerspace for crafts, metalwork,bead making and energy solutions:

Images courtesy of Golda Addo

Linga Wines

2013-05-29T06:00:00.000-04:00

In Malawi:

Linga, near Kasungu, is the maternal village of the Managing Partner of Linga Country Wine, Dr Timothy Ngwira. Linga means "a Fortress" in Chichewa, so this has overtones of the French "Chateau bottled". Dr Ngwira was introduced to wine making in 1978 by the retiring missionary, late Tom Colvin. He started on a small scale but the product was extremely popular with demand from a wide range of colleagues and friends. Even internationally samples were well received by conference participants from New Zealand, Australia and Alaska USA.

From 1996-2002 the fruit wine production was suspended as Dr Ngwira went to Namibia as a founding head of Food Science and Technology Department at the University of Namibia where among other things he taught Fermentation Technology which included wine making. Dr Ngwira also carried out research and published on wine production from Namibian Fruits. Having come back to Malawi in 2002 the wine production was resumed and Linga Fine Foods and Winery was registered as a commercial entity in 2006. The company is a family partnership.

Kickstarter and the view from the trenches of TechShop

2013-05-28T06:00:00.000-04:00

Richard Nieva of PandoDaily writes:

Dehmlow says Kickstarter has even transformed the TechShop. He started to notice the difference about a year ago, when the scope of the projects came a lot bigger. The workshop’s clientele falls into three evenly divided categories: people from existing companies experimenting with new prototypes, artists and craftsmen, and entrepreneurs. He said that since the breakthrough of Kickstarter, the entrepreneurial set that frequents the place have become a lot more aggressive about the business ambitions of their projects. He can’t give a percentage of how many members have or are planning Kickstarter campaigns because it’s all anecdotal and the company doesn’t keep records of that sort of thing. But he says it’s a common occurrence.

The makeshift launch ceremonies at TechShop almost sound like the CEO of a newly public company ringing the opening bell at a stock exchange on IPO day. And while the scale is nowhere near the same, there are some parallels to the daunting challenges ahead for companies in both situations. For a newly public company, a new type of work emerges with your freshly issued ticker symbol. In the same way, when a Kickstarter campaign launches and – God willing – closes successfully, the entrepreneurs begin to fathom the mountain of work ahead after the dopamine wears off.

“They come in the next day and realize what they have to do,” Dehmlow says. They go from having to build a few units to building hundreds or thousands, and TechShop is no longer the place for them. But Dehmlow says he tries to make the transition as easy as possible. He gives those members advice on where they can buy tools to mass-produce, gives them tips on cheap places to rent out space, and shares contacts in TechShop’s network.

He hopes that over time, TechShop can formalize that process. He says he doesn’t want to charge for it, but wants it to work in an organized manner. “We want to help them cross that chasm,” he says.

More here
via Adafruit

Bumbogo, Designing A Uniquely Rwandan Urban Morphology

2013-05-27T06:00:00.000-04:00

Leah Libsekal writing in Another Africa:

The Rwanda-based design firm George Pericles are part of the emerging next generation of thinkers and designers working to shape the urban form and future of Kigali, the capital of Rwanda and beyond. Indeed, with rapid urbanisation the need for innovative ideas rooted in Rwandan culture, traditions and context provides opportunity for practical and locally appropriate solutions in the quest for infrastructure development. Particularly in such a critical moment as this, with the rise in new developments and neighbourhoods in cities such as Kigali that are built with little to no consideration of Rwandan context, George Pericles has raised the critique that these solutions fail to meet the local populace’s everyday needs but will also give rise to more problems in the future. Rather than applying a tabula rasa, they are looking to blend culture and advanced technologies to create a progressive urban fabric importing rural cultural values where applicable.

In their latest project Bumbogo Rwanda : Toponymic Urbanism design office George Pericles have taken up this challenge. They propose an innovative if not ambitious project designed to produce an adaptable future matrix that responds to both economic and cultural factors beginning with Kigali.

Bumbogo decries the superimposition of a master plan or vision from elsewhere, a cardinal tenet. As such the urban matrix uses building blocks that blend regional culture with advanced technologies to produce a vision for an up-to-date urban fabric. To this end, the “Umurenge” or smallest administrative subdivision in Rwandan governance plays an integral role to provide basic services such as water, education, health care and markets. From there George Pericles envision a notion they term ‘Fair-Urbanism.’ Essentially a joint public and private cooperative structure employed to built urban infrastructure such as roads, water and waste collection systems. In the case of Addis Ababa, such local initiatives have been in operation where residents of a given neighbourhood would cooperate to pave local ‘secondary’ roads. With ideas such as this, Guilliame Sardin, lead designer behind the project affirms his point stating that

More here
via African Architecture
Images and Drawings are Courtesy of George Pericles

KULUYA Games

2013-05-26T06:00:00.000-04:00

Ventures Africa reports on KULUYA, producer of:

My Oga @ the Top, an online game recently released by KULUYA which was played 60,000 times within the first 72 hours.

Kunle Ogungbamila, Head of KULUYA said: “We have grown the company to a $2 million valuation in six months. Our goal is to become one of the most successful media companies in Africa, and with today’s news, I see this as being totally achievable”.

“The African narrative is what fuels KULUYA-developed games and it has proved popular with gamers at home and abroad. KULUYA 2.0, launching this week, sees a shift from advertising play to a hybrid commerce platform and takes African gaming to the next level.

More here