Bamako’s Digital Multimedia Bookshop

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“]

AfriGadget Videos now on Zoopy!

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
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:


18 year old self-taught electronics “genius” invents mobile phone-based vehicle anti-theft system.

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.

Keyhole Gardens

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.

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.

Video: Ultra-Customized Rwandan Bicycle Taxi

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.]