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AfriGadget
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5:35
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
 Kibera from space
Google Earth is one way to appreciate the crush in Kibera, Africa’s largest slum. Not surprisingly popular images of people living in desperate conditions aren’t far from the truth when it comes to this corner of Nairobi - but out of the madness comes a little hope.
 Raw sewage flows above ground
I witnessed some amazing innovations in Kibera and conclude that people have adjusted to their situation and are making the most of it. Because of the stress associated with limitations on land, energy, water, and food the people have found innovative ways of surviving. This post is mainly about farming.
Vertical farming
like this guy and his vertical garden which feeds his family and he even sells some produce. It’s a variation on what JKE wrote about in the post on Keyhole gardens in Botswana.
 Like the key hole garden of Swaziland, this veggie patch serves a family on a tiny piece of land
Finding land in rubbish
Now a local organic farming company Green Dreams has been documenting the progress of transforming a garbage dump to an organic farm on the Green Dreams blog. They are working with a local youth group comprising reformed criminals in converting garbage into organic manure, and garbage dumps into organic farms.
 Before the clean up and farming
 Clearing land of garbage
 installing irrigation
Irrigation taps the mains water and supplies nutrient rich feeds from organic fertilizer produced on the site from crops and worms, yes they harvested local earthworms to start vermiculture.
 Worm farm - just a tray with kitchen wastes feeds a bunch of earthworms that produce organic liquid manure
 Planting seedlings, cleared waste is bundled under shade cloth and planted with pumpkin to create a green soil erosion barrier
Check out the planting implements, a PVC Pipe adapted to deliver seeds into a perfectly dug hole! This was invented to help with the back breaking work of planting.
 Scarecrow
 Garbage dump transformed this is the Kibera organic farm - 3 months after clearing the dump
After 3 months the community of 30 families were harvesting, eating and selling organic produce. Yum! Impossible to ignore how a dirty dump turned green, everyone wants a farm in Kibera now. This group is now selling their expertise to raise funds and help others.
Natural Bean Tenderizer
There was a smouldering fire where banana leaves were being reduced to ash, then the ash dissolved in water and the brown murky astringent solution sold for Ksh 50 ($.80) per 250 ml in vodka bottles! This is a bean tenderizer reducing the time to boil red kidney beans by 50%! Imagine the savings on charcoal/fuel.
Safe Dispensing of Fuel
 Kerosene is dispensed from a caged petrol pump for security
Notice that there was no protection around the farm or it’s equipment. Apparently the reputation of these ‘reformed criminals’ is enough of a deterrent.
 Kids in Kibera
Life might be hard in Kibera but yet when you visit you can’t ignore the vibrancy, colorfulness, camaraderie amongst the inhabitants it was one time that I got the feeling that people here love life
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19:18
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Here’s an interesting simple, low-maintenance technology:
“Elephant Pumps” that were introduced to rural areas in Zimbabwe and Malawi during the last few years. These rather simple, enhanced rope pumps (based on an ancient Chinese technology) where designed for use in rural areas, where the supply of readymade spare parts isn’t that easy.
 Cycle option on an Elephant Pump
Now, what makes the Elephant Pump so different from the other popular low-maintenance pump “Afripump” is that it’s locally assembled and maintainable by the local community. Both systems - Afripump and Elephant Pump - may have their pro & cons (80-100m depth, high durability, low-maintenance vs. <40m depth, simple design, cheaper), but I especially like the “bicycle option” added to pumps which were built for schools:
On school pumps Pump Aid often incorporates a “bicycle” system onto the Elephant Pump since this has proved enormously popular with children. Most children in Zimbabwe have never had the chance to ride a bicycle so can even come to school early to “play” on the pump thereby helping to fill the school water tanks. The job of collecting water, once a tiresome chore, becomes fun and children no longer have to leave their classrooms to walk miles carrying buckets of water on their heads from a distant muddy pool.
The British Charity Org “Pump Aid“, which has in the past introduced and promoted these systems in Zimbabwe and Malawi for the costs of GBP 250 (~ USD 460, EUR 310) each, also created a very informative video on how the technology actually works:
“The Elephant Pump yields about one litre of clean water every second for an average well depth of 20 metres.”
It’s simple, it works, it wins! 
[h/t NextBillion.net]
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12:18
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Bush camping is one of the greatest pleasures of living in Kenya – only if you have the right equipment. On a recent hastily planned trip to Lake Magadi hot springs we discovered too late that we’d forgotten the jiko (charcoal cooking stove). Stopping in Magadi town which serves only one industry, the Magadi Soda Company, we had one made for us right there and then in a very active jua kali workshop.
 It starts with a discarded gas cylinder
I always wondered where the metal for jiko’s came from - In this the many discarded gas cylinders are chopped into segments to make up the body of the jiko.
Welding the finishing touches
There seems to be no power shortage here, a mess of electric cables and metal and wooden waste remnants from the soda company is an active business for about 20 artisans making furniture, gates, and jikos for the staff of the soda company.
Everything was home made including the tools
 Corporate safety message hasn't quite translated
A ten minute job turned out into a one hour event and a thousand shillings later ($20) we take off proudly with our extremely heavy stove. That’s when we discover that there is no charcoal to be had in this part of the world anyway. We ended up with a 3 stone fire.
A flat piece of salty earth was our camp at the "Community campsite"
At dinner time we realized that we’d forgotten most of the food anyway ( camping note to Paula: don’t believe him when he says “I already put it in the car” ).
Magadi is spectacular for bird viewing
Nevertheless, the hot springs were fabulous.
Don't believe the guide books version of the hot springs as "tepid" - these springs are excruciatingly hot
The Jiko came home and has not yet been used - and thinking about it now … should I be worrying about cooking on something made from gas cylinders? Is it just iron or could there be lead in this?
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22:08
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Or How to get your camel milk to market in 40 degree C climate.
My brother Dominic Wanjihia invented this gadget which he calls Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
Fine Lined Evaporative Cooler, for rural application in Somalia - the cooling of camels milk for transportation . He was working on a project for VETAID, Somali Pastoral Dairy Development Program - SPDDP,in Burao, Somalia June 2008. All this content belongs to Dominic who has allowed me to post it here- please seek his permission to use this content elsewhere dwanjihia@yahoo.com
 Cool-box design Fine Lined Evaporative cooler
Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
Evaporative cooling technology
The evaporative cooling concept has been used for centuries in countless applications. Cooling occurs when a fluid changes state from liquid to vapor. Put simply, evaporation. In order to evaporate, the liquid requires energy or heat. It acquires this heat energy from its immediate surrounding. As the surrounding gives up this heat, it lowers in temperature or cools.
The rate at which evaporation occurs depends largely on two main factors, the amount of heat available and the humidity in the air.
The cooler must also be shaded from direct sunlight otherwise the surfaces absorb UV heat and warms up, becoming ineffective as a cooler.
In short
Evaporative cooling devices work most efficiently in windy, dry and shaded conditions
Charcoal cooler
Everyone knows how to make charcoal fridges. After carrying out extensive tests on evaporative coolers in hot arid Burao, Somaliland, with day temperatures as high as 36OC in the shade, the charcoal would absorb ambient heat from the air and as opposed to cooling, would warm up the interior compartment.
Imagine wearing a wet thick winter jacket under the palms at a breezy beach. The jacket acts as a wetsuit and will insulate your body preventing heat from escaping.
Fine lined cooler
However, imagine wearing a wet skintight t-shirt in similar conditions. The water evaporates quite rapidly and cools your body.
I applied this concept to the cooler prototype pictured and achieved startling results. The cooler would drop as low as 15.5OC at night when temperatures averaged 25OC and maintain under 17OC during the day at average temps of + 32OC.
 Evapocooler
Construction
An elevated metal box is lined interior and exterior with a fabric. In this case I used locally available corrugated galvanized iron sheets for the container and sisal sacking fabric for lining. The upper ends of the fabric overhang in a water trough that rings the top of the cooler. Capillary action causes the water to slowly trickle over the inner and outer surfaces. A small vent keeps the interior air circulating and wind guides or tunnels direct air flow over the exterior surfaces. A low speed small solar powered fan can be incorporated in areas where there is not a constant breeze.
How it works
The circulating air in the interior causes evaporation on the wet surfaces. The necessary energy is acquired from the contents hence cooling them and is transfers to the iron sides.
Wind guides or tunnels direct an airflow over the external sides. The evaporation that occurs acquires energy from the sides causing further cooling of the interior.
 Convection current system to increase water bath cooling
Construction design
Cool-box with water-bath interior for rapid milk cooling application– Collection Point Cooler
Walk-in cold-room for vegetable storage
Vehicle mounted for long distance transporters
Features (Comparison to conventional charcoal coolers)
Very simple construction
Corrugated galvanized iron or GI sheets increase the surface area
Wind tunnels guide air flow efficiently over evaporation surfaces
Air flow coolers at tunnel entrances
Being galvanized, the sheets are long lasting
GI sheets are affordable and available in most rural areas
Secondhand sacking fabric is available in virtually every vegetable market
The simple capillary action dripping system replaces more complicated dripping apparatus
Convection current system to increase water-bath cooling efficiency
 Cool box design with waterbath for rapid drop in temperature of milk
 The design simplified
Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
In hot arid regions, cooling the warm ambient air before it reaches the wet evaporation surfaces increase efficiency. Note. Setup for airflow from either direction
 level coolers – achieved low’s of 16OC at ambient temp of 30OC +
 Rapid Temperature Drop Test 4 lts boiling water in aluminum milk churn placed in water-bath at 16OC
Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
For further information and other rural development concepts and innovative designs, Dom can be reached on
mobile tel +254 722 700 530 dwanjihia@yahoo.com
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14:29
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Ruud Elmendorp, a video journalist living in East Africa, has done a more in depth interview with the young Morris Mbetsa who we recently talked about with his mobile phone-based car security system.
“You don’t need a computer, you don’t need a monthly subscription fee, you just need your mobile phone.”
He’s now looking to start a company that manufactures and installs these systems in Kenya.
[Blog link | Video link]
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2:12
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
On a recent trip to the worlds greatest natural wonder (well, ok, one of!), the wilderbeeste migration in the Masai Mara, we had the pleasure of discovering an extraordinary bush vehicle repair outfitters in the lovely slum village of Talek, after our extortionately expensive rental car suffered from not one, but three flat tyres.
If you haven’t been to the Mara during the spectacular migration, then you might find it hard to imagine our frustration - try rousing 5 kids and 4 adults at 5 am, pack them and lunch and head off to the Mara River to witness for the first time in our lives, the crossing of thousands of wilderbeeste, zebra, gazelles, lions, - images of crocodiles leaping for the bleating calves … adrenaline racing with anticipation…..and then “poof”, a flat, right at the edge of the Mara reserve.
No big deal right - just change the tyre and continue. Five minutes delay? No, 3 hours later, we’re screaming at the rental agent because the key for the spare tyre’s lock does not work! Aaarrrggghhhh
With second car we head to Talek hardly expecting to find an outfitter who can repair tubeless tyres.
This is what we found.
 Finding punctures in a converted wheel barrow - there were 15!
A modified wheel barrow full of silty water and a bit of detergent to find the holes. We stopped counting a 15 - it was very depressing! I don’t even remember going over a thorn bush either!Should have been my first warning - these tyres were seriously worn and thin.
The air compressor system comprised a tank and engine and a compressor unit - the last part was an adaptation from an airconditioning unit off a vehicle! Very creative.
 Modified compressor
In the end we had to opt for converting a tubeless tyre into a tube tyre - and this is the gizmo that was used to remove the tyre. It was completely home made and very effective. We found an old inner tube with just about the right dimensions at one of the tented camps, 350 shillings and 3 hours later we were on the road again!
 Once back on the road Mara never fails to impressWe witnessed the crossing
 Wildebeeste crossing the Mara River
It was well worth the hell to get to the crossing point - and of course this is where we experienced puncture no. 2! Crazy place for a puncture as you aren’t allowed to step out of your car while animals are crossing. Hours later It was back to Talek jua kali puncture repair for us!
 Yeah, the predators were in good form too
After 3 days of stunning experiences we headed back to Nairobi on what may easily be described as the worlds worst road. That was where the new tubed tyre went totally bezerk on us and exploded ripping the tube completely in half! Turns out the tyres were so worn that the wires in the tyre simply ripped the tube open. Nice one!
We discovered that the spare lock could be opened with a good whack! with a tyre spanner and off the lock fell. Away we went.
Words of advice to anyone renting a 4×4 to go on a major trek to Mara or anywhere in Kenya - check everything before you go, take rental company managers personal cell no with and make sure you have credit and full phone charge, take a second car if you can, and a fundi (without my brother I’d probably still be on the road side - thanks a million Dom!). Despite the annoying hassles of the rental car and the unbelievable road, the trip was well worth it. I refused to pay for the lost day and was so glad to see the back of that damn rental car - the agency didn’t quarrel. Gonna buy my own safari car now.
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12:04
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
A couple weeks ago, on a trip to Cambridge (US), Clark Boyd of The World sat down with me to do a quick interview and to grab some pictures from my most recent trip to Kenya for a slideshow. Here are the results (you can definitely tell a pro is behind this production):
[Direct slideshow link - higher quality]
Courtesy of Clark Boyd, Technology Correspondent for The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Boston. For Clark’s weekly technology podcast, visit www.theworld.org/technology.
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9:04
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Hello - I’m new to Afrigadgets and look forward to sharing the interesting innovations we come across every day.
A small group of innovative conservationists have come up with a solution to save the Virunga National Park in eastern Congo from destruction by charcoal producers who are devastating the forests to serve the needs of Goma’s burgeoning population of displaced people.
Their approach to ending the dependence on charcoal is to provide an alternative form of energy - briquettes made of organic wastes. Here are some photos of the gadget and results!
 The briquette press
 Piston Cylinder with holes
 Briquette press at work
 Briquettes drying out
 A traditional Jiko adapted and fueled on briquettes
“The beauty in these briquettes is that they are made from what has been considered, up to this point, waste. Furthermore, the material is available locally, so there are virtually no transportation costs. And, once the burn characteristics of the briquettes are understood, they burn very similarly to charcoal. If introduced to the marketplace properly, the presence of biomass briquettes should dramatically reduce the consumption of illegal forest charcoal. That’s good for mountain gorillas and people alike”. Robert Williams from Ending Charcoal
Indeed as I write the briquettes are on sale at half the price of charcoal and are selling well. It has been calculated that with 100 presses at work at once, the dependence of the town of Goma on charcoal will be ended (though they do have to find alot of trash for it)! The technology is available elsewhere but I’ve yet to see it put to use so successfully for such an important social and environmental cause.
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12:16
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
In downtown Bamako, Mali an entrepreneurial bookshop owner, Mamadou Coulibaly, has been attracting an ever-increasing number of clients and curious onlookers since the owner set up an odd-looking computer. “The Source” is a handmade computer box that acts as an offline distributor of online multimedia material. Anyone can step up to the kiosk and pick up anything from Wikipedia pages to local music. Their most popular requests: the Koran and Malian music.
[video link]
“Our goal is to give people a wider access to educational and cultural material, so this can help to trigger their desire to learn and expand their knowledge.”
This type of innovation really brings home the slow, or expensive, capacity of local internet connections. Bypassing internet cafes (slow) for local, or more static content, can be done through local-only internet hosting too. However, what’s ingenious here is the idea that most people in Bamako don’t need the internet connection at all. That by acting as a simple distribution node for dynamic information and media (the web) they are successfully filling the needs of the local population.
It’s always good to see local-level entrepreneurs benefiting from taking outside ideas and making them work for their needs in Africa. Many times a completely new solution isn’t needed, just a culturally relevant one.
[More on "The Source"]
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7:24
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Joining the AfriGadget community with Zoopy’s video community
Over the past two years AfriGadget videos have been hosted haphazardly by our team on YouTube and Brightcove. We’re very happy to announce that we’re partnering with one of Africa’s premier video and image hosting sites, Zoopy, for all of our videos from now on. We’re all about promoting African entrepreneurs, and this is no exception.
Jason, and the team at Zoopy, has created a customized channel for us, that can be found at Zoopy.com/AfriGadget. They’ve been brilliant, responsive and patient all through the setup process.
 AfriGadget videos can now be found on Zoopy.com
Look for a few more videos going up on Zoopy than we used to put up elsewhere, some of them the outtakes that are just sitting in the archive. We’re not video pros, as most of you know by now, but it sure is great to hear these innovators tell their own story in their own words.
Here’s an example from a story on a lady and her daughter who make custom fishing flies:
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0:14
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Morris Mbetsa, an 18 year old self-taught inventor with no formal electronics training from the coastal tourist town of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean in Kenya, has invented the “Block & Track”, a mobile phone-based anti-theft device and vehicle tracking system.
The system, that Mbetsa created by combining technology from projects that he has completed in the past, uses a combination of voice, DTMF and SMS text messages over cell-based phone service to carry codes and messages that allow control of some of a vehicles’ electrical systems including the ignition to manage vehicle activation and disabling remotely in real time.
Another feature of the system is the capacity to poll the vehicle owner by mobile phone for permission to start when the ignition is turned in real time as well as eavesdrop on conversation in the vehicle.
Mbetsa is now looking for funding to commercially develop his proof of concept and bring it to the market as reported on this video carried on the Kenya Television Network earlier this year.
via 69MB.
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21:11
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Following a story on BBC News that fellow blogger Sokari of BlackLooks had already picked up earlier in June (as well as Alison), our reader Zeno dropped in an e-mail, asking if we knew more about keyhole gardens.
Keyhole gardens?
Actually, I had heard about those Folkewall installations in Gabarone, Botswana the other day that are used for greywater recycling, but keyhole gardens were indeed quite new to me. Guess this also shows how many smart solutions still exist out there that will need to be rediscovered and put in use.
 source: African Gardens
Keyhole gardens are a technique used to grow vegetables in a dry climate. They are actually a special form of raised bed gardens: circular waist high raised beds with a path to the center. Walled in by stones, there’s a basket made from sticks and straw in the center that holds manure and other organic kitchen waste for compost.
Since they look like a keyhole from above, they are often called keyhole gardens and also promoted under this name in Lesotho, where the charity organisation “Send a Cow” has been promoting the creation of these special gardens for some time now.
So what makes these gardens so special?
- the surrounding stones retain the rich soils and keep it safe from erosion
- the round shape retains moisture
- compact size, even small plots can be used for gardening
- raised beds enable the sick and elderly to help with the gardening work
- center in the middle is used for composting and reuse of greywater (= reuse of nutrients)
“Send a Cow” also created a very informative website on their activies and published some valuable How-to-manuals for us to adopt this smart approach. Please also check out this funny animation on YouTube which puts it in plain enligsh comic style
Now I am only curious to know if we could also mix the greywater with some collected urine and use that as additional fertilizer. In any case, keyhole gardens are a very appropriate “technology” which certainly isn’t limited to countries with a dry climate.
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5:07
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Not all inventiveness is utilitarian (or, business can be fun and fun can mean more business…).
Such is the case with this video by Eric Kabera – the maker of the genocide film “100 days” and inventor of Hillywood - Rwanda’s version of Hollywood. In it he interviews Alphonse Maniriho, an unschooled young 23 year old with an idea: take the classic “Black Mamba” bicycle and completely customize it.
Being a smart young businessman, Alphonse uses his unique bicycle to his advantage, getting extra business from young men who want to ride with him so they can listen to the beats along the way.
A quick list of customizations:
- A watch, set in an old shoe polish can
- Lights, that flicker in the front and back at night
- Radio, for his passengers to listen to
A little background on what being a taxi man is in East and Central Africa is probably important for most who haven’t been to Africa. They have a seat on the back of the bicycle and use that to take passengers around. In East Africa they also go by the term “boda boda” (because they originated around the border of Uganda and Kenya).
Bonus: at about the 8:30 minute mark there are some nice videos of the wooden bikes used around Africa.
[Hat tip: a special thanks to Paula Kahumbu of Wildlife Direct for pointing me towards this story.]
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1:37
From: AfriGadget
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I’ve written about handmade tools in Africa before, but it didn’t generate a ton of interest, so I’ve not followed-up on it very much in my travels. I was really happy to see that another person was intrigued by this though, Kevin Kelly has a post where Tom Ritchey, master bike frame builder, sent him pictures of hand-made tools he spotted at bike shops in Rwanda.
Fabrication is an important skill in developing nations. Along the whole process you see reuse taking place, even down to the tools being used to create the items in question.
A Kenyan micro-entrepreneur recently told me:
In the sixties, during the space race between Russia and the U.S.A the Russian Engineers, when told there was no more money for the budget philosophically said “now we have no money then we can think” and they were able to be tremendously creative when compared to the Americans despite the limited funds at their disposal. This is the same approach I use in my initiatives.
As I’m not the only one who thinks these are pretty cool, I’m digging into the AfriGadget Flickr Group to pull out a picture that I never published here on the blog. These are small engine repair tools built to work on motorcycles, generators and lawnmowers (among other things):
And finally, a video of Bernard, one of the local small engine repair guys in Nairobi (who’s shop has since disappeared) talking about how he makes some of the tools:
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18:38
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Gikomba is a part of Nairobi that is well known for metal working. I had been meaning to come this way for a while, and today afforded me the perfect opportunity to drop down into Gikomba and see what kind of enterprising activities Kenyans were up to.
I ran into a George Odhiambo, a bulk fabricator of everything from wheelbarrows to chisels. The chisels caught my eye, primarily because one of them looked a lot like a shaft straight out of a Land Rover. It turns out that they reuse multiple types of iron for their goods, including leftover pieces from old vehicles. Nothing goes to waste here.
Even more interesting to me (probably because it moved and did stuff with fire), was the bicycle-turned-to-bellows that kept the fire going that would heat the metal rods. It’s a fairly simple, yet ingenious contraption that utilizes old materials with a little bit of engineering. The thing runs all day, every day too, so it’s made to last.
The chisel pictured below is a stone chisel, used in quarrying and squaring stones in the quarry’s dotting the country (most houses in Kenya are stone). They cost about 350/= ($6) to make, and sell for about 650/-= ($11).
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16:01
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
We just received some great news.
AfriGadget was included in Time Magazine’s list of 50 best sites for 2008.
This is quite an honor especially in light of the fact that AfriGadget is run entirely by volunteers. Good news though, our posting frequency should go up shortly as we have a team in the field sourcing stories right now.
As a primer to all things AfriGadget, here are links to our Flickr Group and Grassroots Reporting Project as well as a list of some of our favorite/most popular stories.
thanks,
The AfriGadget Team.
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1:05
From: AfriGadget
Read This Entry & More At AfriGadget
Jim is a musician, videographer and member of the Kenyan animation trio Just-A-Band. He needed a consistent light source for his video shoots, and as he puts it…
1. the sun is REALLY powerful
2. but very unpredictable
So he decided to create his own lighting equipment from easily available components that included:
1. 2 cardboard boxes (20/-)
2. 15 bulb holders (approx. 150/- each)
3. energy saving bulbs (the 23-watt ‘cool daylight’ types - 450/- each. Ouch.)
4. a roll of aluminium foil (approx. 200/-)
5. lots of cellotape/masking tape
With the help of his friend Kevin who is an electrician, he went from this
and
To
Contrast his total cost of approximately 7000 Kenya shillings (about $113) with Tungsten lights being sold in Nairobi, Kenya for 20,000 Ksh (about $320), this is a neat DIY project that not only saved him some money, but also shows the African Ingenuity we are always excited about.
Check out more pics and the rest of his post on his blog.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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