A trash collector on a trike

A roadside motorcycle mechanic

Carrying tables and chairs

Hauling “trucks”

IDDS Ghana 2009

The International Development Design Summit is put on by Amy Smith and her students at MIT. This year it took place in Kumasi, Ghana – which will be followed by Maker Faire Africa this weekend in Accra, where some of their work will be shown.

Here’s a quick list of the projects they have been working on over the last five weeks:

- A press that speeds up the process of extracting oil from shea nuts
- A device for generating electricity from a playground carousel
- A machine for making recycled plastic products from used water sachets
- A set of tools for threshing groundnuts
- A mechanism for producing chlorine from salt water using readily available materials
- A simple, low cost battery made from local materials, for household lighting and other uses
- A human powered grating machine for speeding up cassava processing
- A thresher to improve the quality of rice by preventing stones from mixing with the grains
- A chlorine dispenser for disinfecting drinking water
- A family friendly latrine designed to promote use and hygiene among young children
- A device for monitoring the growth of children under five through cell phone technology
- A container that extends the shelf life of tomatoes during transport and storage

Edward tells Hazwan some of his thoughts on the rice threshing machine.

The importance of being in Ghana

Niall Walsh has written this information about how the importance of the move to Ghana for this year’s IDDS was to both MIT and the participants:

The main difference between IDDS Ghana and IDDS in MIT is the proximity to community partners and potential end users of the projects. IDDS prides itself on the spirit of co-creation and this movement from the States to Africa is a crucial one in line with this vision. The difference between participants sitting in lecture halls in MIT, learning about international development and the importance of speaking to at least fifty villagers before designing a technology, and actually living with and talking to hundreds of villagers all over the country, is immeasurable. In total IDDS this year worked with ten villages throughout the Bromg – Ahafo and Ashanti regions and teams had the chance to make three separate two night visits (spread throughout the design process to make sure they had input into every stage) to these villages. Among a huge number of other factors, the simple experience of having end users actually become extremely excited about your prototype, and seeing them test it out, is an incentive for teams to continue their project after IDDS.

Another way in which IDDS interacted with the local community, rather than simply for it, was through it’s interactions with Suame Magazine. This is an engineering cluster located in the centre of Kumasi, spanning twenty miles and with a working population of over 200,000 people. There are approximately 12,000 independent micro, small and medium enterprises located in the area and their main activities of vehicle repair and metal fabrication (welding and casting) are renowned for their ingenuity all across West Africa. During the summit, participants worked extensively with these engineers and mechanics in the ‘Magazine’ and had the chance to share ideas, techniques, and technologies with each other

The point has been stressed home at this year’s IDDS that these villagers involved in the process, as well as the workshop guys in Suame, are partners in the design process, rather than simply people we should talk to along the way. Without these partners, the technologies presented tomorrow at the Great Hall would quite simply not be possible, and I think that knowledge, in and of itself, will prove invaluable to our participants as they continue to work in international development after the conference. In light of this, five villagers from each village, as well as workshop managers from Suame, will be provided transport, accommodation and food to come to the final presentations to see all the different prototypes.

Systems have also been put in place to ensure that the projects worked on at this year’s IDDS will continue to be worked on after IDDS. There are project grants and partnership grants available for the teams and there will also be a full time country liaison for Ghana, responsible for integrating the technologies into all of our partner villages, as well as sourcing new villagers and markets to help disseminate and create business models for the technologies. On a far more practical level, villagers will also have the opportunity to decide which of the prototypes they are most interested in, and then work with our partners in Suame Magazine to have these manufactured.

A little background

Four months ago the Pop!Tech team approached me about their collaborative project with Sheila Kennedy of the Portable Light project, who showed off her solar TB blanket at Pop!Tech 2008, and Timbuk2, the well-known messenger bag company.

Their plan was to develop a bag that has the potential to bring the benefits of portable power to selected global communities around the globe, and they were hoping the I could help with distribution and testing within the African communities that I frequent, where power is crucial. Of course, I jumped right in, this was just too intriguing to not do so, plus I have great admiration for all of the players: Pop!Tech, Timbuk2 and Sheila Kennedy.

The FLAP bag project

FLAP stands for Flexible Light And Power. The flap on the messenger bag has the single solar panel on it, connected to the tech tray, which has an on/off switch, an LED light and a USB connection. So, in concept, the bag can be used as a portable lighting and power supply unit for anyone. Most useful however, to those lacking consistent power for devices or an electric lighting option.

Image: How to charge the FLAP bag

This bag will be the official Pop!Tech 2009 bag, and will also be sold by Timbuk2 sometime after that. It’s a unique bag that has the potential to change the way a lot of people (not just in Africa) do things. I don’t have detailed information on any of that, so look to the Pop!Tech team for more information on availability.

AfriGadget’s part in this

Due to my fairly extensive travels, dealing with just the right cross section of potential users for the bag, I was in the right place to distribute some test bags for feedback from end-users. My job, over the next three weeks will be to find the right types of people to give a bag to, interview them before and after, and report back on my findings.

My first stop is Ghana, then on to Kenya and Uganda. I have 10 FLAP bags, with plans to hand out 4 in Ghana, 4 in Kenya and 2 in Uganda. To do the interviews, I will have the help of Henry Addo in Ghana (also a colleague or mine at Ushahidi), and with David Ngigi in Kenya (a young videographer and friend). Pop!Tech has supplied us with small video cameras that we’ll be using for the interviews, as well as some starter questions and types of individuals that they would like to see get the bag.

My objective is to find people from many walks of life, from taxi drivers to citizen journalists, and from roadside food ladies to seamstresses. One of my questions is this: can much of this bag be created from locally available materials?

My main goal: find out if it is useful, usable and if its adaptable to everyday life in Africa.
The Challenge: asking people how they would adopt these kits, looking for inventiveness.

I won’t be sugar-coating my own reviews, nor those of the people who we interview.

Tune in for more tomorrow

My next post will be pictures of the kits, unboxing of the items that I have received and my initial opinions on them. I’ll also be doing some personal interviews (video diary) of myself throughout the weeks ahead, giving some insights into the day’s events and overall thoughts on the FLAP bag project.

[Update: Day 1 video diary]

I’ll also be using Twitter for updates, and though I manage the @AfriGadget account, when I get on the road I usually just post from my personal @WhiteAfrican account.

Additional updates from the manufacturer and from the project team will be found on the Pop!Tech blog and the Timbuk2 blog from time-to-time.

We came at this event from a specific angle – we mixed the types of individuals who show up on AfriGadget and Timbuktu Chronicles, and the ethos of the greater MAKE community, all with the blessings of the good folks at Maker Faire. The dates were chosen to coincide with Amy Smith’s and MIT’s International Development and Design Summit (IDDS), which will run for 3 weeks before MFA, also in Ghana.

As Emeka puts it:

The aim of a Maker Faire-like event is to create a space on the continent where Afrigadget-type innovations, inventions and initiatives can be sought, identified, brought to life, supported, amplified, propagated, etc. Maker Faire Africa asks the question, “What happens when you put the drivers of ingenious concepts from Mali with those from Ghana and Kenya, and add resources to the mix?”

How You can Support MFA

First off, help spread the word! Let people know where and when it will be. Share the link to the site, grab a badge, blog it.

Second, help us find sponsors. If you know an organization or individual who would like to support this amazing event, put us in touch with them. It could be monetary, or it could be donating some cool gadgets, gear, tools or devices for people to hack on while there. (example idea: we’d love to get some LEGO Mindstorm kits for the local high schools).

Third, come. If you have the time and ability, we’d love to have you, your ideas and your gadgets at MFA.

The Team

In my role as founder of AfriGadget, I’m part of the organizing team to put together Maker Faire Africa, joined by my an excellent group of people including:

• Emeka Okafor of Timbuktu Chronicles and the Director of TED Africa
• Erik Hersman, Founder of AfriGadget
• Lars Hasselblad Torres, Director MIT IDEAS Competition
• Mark Grimes, Founder Ned.com and Founder NedSpace
• Nii Simmonds of Nubian Cheetah

Want to get involved yourself? Get in touch!

Alfred Sirleaf is an analog blogger. He take runs the “Daily News”, a news hut by the side of a major road in the middle of Monrovia. He started it a number of years ago, stating that he wanted to get news into the hands of those who couldn’t afford newspapers, in the language that they could understand.

Alfred serves as a reminder to the rest of us, that simple is often better, just because it works. The lack of electricity never throws him off. The lack of funding means he’s creative in ways that he recruits people from around the city and country to report news to him. He uses his cell phone as the major point of connection between him and the 10,000 (he says) that read his blackboard daily.

Liberia’s Blackboard Blogger from WhiteAfrican on Vimeo.

Not all Liberians who read his news are literate, so he makes use of symbols. Whether it’s a UN or military helmet, a poster of a soccer player or a bottle of colored water to denote gas prices, he is determined to get the message out in any way that he can.

Advertising works here too. It’s $5 to be on the bottom level, $10 to be on the sideboard and $25 on the main section. He doesn’t get a lot of advertising, and but he manages to scrape by.

His plans for the future include decentralizing his work, this means opening up identical locations in other parts of Monrovia, and in a few of the larger cities around the country. I don’t put it past Alfred either, he’s a scrappy entrepreneur on a mission to bring information and news to ordinary Liberians. He’s succeeded thus far, and I would put my money on him growing it even further.

(Also, read the NYT piece on him from 3 years ago)

(note: title for this post stolen shamelessly from Rebecca’s Pocket. I also first posted this at WhiteAfrican, because I couldn’t decide if it was an AfriGadget story or not…)

Thoughts from some of the speakers

(Note: I’ll likely keep this as a running liveblog today – as much as I can keep up with it anyway, I’m not Ethan Zuckerman… My pictures will be up in this Flickr set.)

Jocelyn Wyatt of IDEO, comes to the stage asking, “how can design have positive social impact?” They did interviews with 143 organizations and individuals and came away with the following two common themes for their report (download the PDF):

“Frustration with the progress in addressing problems we all care about.”

“Design thinking can make a big contribution to the social sector.”

What is design thinking? It’s looking at problems through the lens of what is desirable by people. Design thinking contributes through empathy, prototyping and storytelling. Empathy is about connecting with people and seeing the world from their perspective, not yours. Prototyping is about building to think – it helps us get answers fast (drawing, legos, etc.). Storytelling is about taking key elements and making them real.

The elephant in the room – there’s a tension between wanting to do the projects and needing to run a business.

When Nature Calls – Architecture in the Face of Change

Lukas Feireiss, well known architecture author who wrote “Architecture of Change“, addresses how our new global world sees technology spread to all the corners of the earth. He talks about the solar panels attached to camels that are being used by nomads in the Sahel desert in Northern Africa for refrigeration.

A survival guide for do-gooders

Ross Evans, of Worldbike and Xtracycle is up. I’m a big fan of what Ross is doing, he lives his work.

One of his ideas was to build a bike trailer, because he thought it might be useful in Nicaragua, back in 1995. However, he found that they weren’t used much. It’s hard to get the wagon wheels and trailer’s don’t really work well with footpaths. This moved him to a new idea, which was a longer wheelbase bicycle that might work more within that cultural context.

He cautions against galloping in on a white horse. It’s really important to watch what happens after you leave. His idea is “Three – One – Three”. This idea is around intercultural iteration, from the third world to the first world, back to the third world.

“When you go to a new place, and have an open mind, then you see new things. If you’re trying to solve problems within a context you already have, you’re going to have a hard time.”

Make sure you live with the people that you’re trying to study and help through design. Do what they do – eat with your hands, sleep on the floor, whatever it takes to immerse yourself in that context.

“She who laughs, lasts” – pace yourself and have fun.

“What do you do with naysayers? Thank them for the compost.”

“Start with the assumption that they don’t need your idea.”

Cameron Sinclair, of Architecture for Humanity, is talking on creating systemic change through design.

Notes: in the wake of these disasters that happen around the world, the design and architecture community:

“We are not humanitarian workers. We are not recovery experts. We arm communities to buld base don sustainable prosperity. After an emergency, people don’t want a house, they want a job.”

It’s important to let communites “own” projects. Let them get involved in the design process, and don’t slap your branded sign on it. A “Ronald McDonald House for Tsunami Victims” strips away ownership faster than anything else. Plus, everyone expects Ronald McDonald to come fix things when they break.

The role of engineers in poverty reduction

Bernard Amadei, Founding President of Engineers Without Borders – USA and co-founder of Engineers Without Borders-International, is on stage to talk about how it’s the small, unsexy engineering projects tend to make the biggest impact.

Bernard asks, “why do engineering for the developing world?” And goes through the numbers on everything from food supply to water preservation to transportation, healthcare and waste disposal (impressive numbers).

“In the next two decades, almost 2 billion additional people will populate the earth. This growth will create demands on an unprecedented scale.”

Lights

Sheila Kennedy, of the Portable Light Project, is showing how they have created a completely customizable solar powered portable light device. She’s giving a really amazing talk about technology use around the world, and how a seemingly small thing (light), can be so game changing.

Creating Opportunities

Clarice Odhiambo, of the newly founded Africa Center for Engineering Social Solutions (ACESS). Clarice was the one running a lot of the Coca-Cola clean water projects in Africa over the last decade.

“There is no country in Africa that I haven’t been to. There has been so much aid pumped into Africa, so I asked, why is nothing changing? They are not in the situation they are in because they are lazy or dumb. They are there because they lack the supporting structures and lacking opportunities. People are idle. People with degrees and who could be working productively somewhere, but there are no opportunities.”

My motto in life is, “Don’t wait for the other person. If the world is to change, it is up to me.”

Basic principles:
It should not be about us, but the sensible thing to do for “the world we leave”. No competition – don’t just duplicate each others efforts. Collaborate for synergy. Generate income while you go about it. When we don’t pay attention and address the effects from our designs, the inevitable happens.

People engage in destructive practices – not by choice, but of necessity (deforestation, pollution, etc…).

I had a chance to meet him last week at a conference called Pop!Tech in the United States. Many of the businesses and entrepreneurs featured on AfriGadget fit this model. If you’re interested in this subject, you’re probably already following his blog. If not, jump on over there and dig into some of the articles.

So far, he has built three windmills in his yard here, using blue-gum trees and bicycle parts. His tallest, at 39 feet, towers over this windswept village, clattering away as it powers his family’s few electrical appliances: 10 six-watt light bulbs, a TV set and a radio. The machine draws in visitors from miles around.

Read the story.
Read William’s blog.

Some AfriGadget Groups

AfriGadget Flickr Group – We have an image gallery on Flickr that you can take part in. Tag your images “AfriGadget” and add them to the AfriGadget group.

AfriGadget Facebook Group – Just started this month, the AfriGadget Facebook group is a place that you can talk to other AfriGadget readers and find like-minded friends.

Website Redesign
This has been a long time coming. The current site has some problems that we’d like to “fix” via a redesign. We’ll still be using WordPress, but want to make it more accessible and increase the breadth of information available. Feedback indicates that people like the look and feel of the current site, so we’ll try and stay pretty true to what you see now.

There has been an ever increasing number of emails asking for more information on specific projects, as well as a great deal of interest from people who want to purchase some of the items that we’ve shown on AfriGadget. We’re going to be building in some of those features into the new site.

Helping Micro-Entrepreneurs
I’ve had a number of interviews by different media outlets over the last couple months, and one specific interview by a South African radio company really hit me. They asked, “How does AfriGadget help the Africans who are beings showcased?”. I didn’t have an answer – or, I did, but the answer was “not at all”.

In the new site, we would like to work with an organization like Kiva, and their partners, to create ways for people to invest in some of the entrepreneurs that we talk about. In the cases where it makes sense, we’ll also help the entrepreneurs sell some of their items via our website.

Growing AfriGadget
The website initiative is only one of the three that we’re planning for this year. If we can find the right partners, we’ll be announcing some projects that a couple AfriGadget editors will be leading that are, quite frankly, much more exciting and “big” than a website redesign. As we grow AfriGadget we’re looking for partners who can help us. Contact me if you’d like to know more about those initiatives!

All of us do AfriGadget on the side. The growth of the site that I have outlined above is meant to benefit the innovators in Africa, not those of us who manage and create content for this site.

2 Days later, William Kamkwamba was introduced to the TED community on stage: