Our friend Bill Zimmerman, a technologist who runs a startup un-incubator called LimbeLabs in Cameroon, posted this interesting story on his blog about a teacher who makes an extra income by fabricating gadgets out of Bamboo.
Avid readers may remember the Bamboo Bike project, so the idea of using Bamboo as an alternative and sustainable material isn’t that far fetched. In fact, we’re glad that someone took the initiative and ventured into this field with so many different products at the same time. Bamboo Magic, really. Make sure not to miss out the video!
“I had an opportunity to stop by the 2009 South West Regional Agro-Pastoral Show, an annual exhibition for local farmers and craftsmen, here in Limbe this afternoon. The event was held on a community field ringed by exhibition booths overflowing with every imaginable vegetable, fruit and live animal cultivated and raised in the southwest region of Cameroon. In addition, there were a number of innovators with homemade products and gadgets crafted from local materials.
Amid all the displays, one guy stood apart with some creations that can only be described as a near perfect marriage of form, function, green design and a borderline obsession with bamboo. Lekuama Ketuafor is the proprietor of Bamboo Magic, a one-man cottage industry he’s started to supplement his work as a teacher.
Using a set of simple hand tools, glue, varnish, skill and loads of patience, Lekuama finds ways of using bamboo—a ubiquitous, low-cost, renewable material—in ways many people have never imagined. Judging from the size of the crowd gathered around his booth, I suspect few Cameroonians had seen anything quite like Lekuama’s creations before.
Among the intricately decorated bamboo shoes [2], vest, palm wine calabash, cowboy hat, clocks and so on, I was immediately attracted to two incredibly cool electronics-related pieces: a bamboo covered Nokia phone and an attractive and functional laptop case. Here’s a video of Lekuama, dressed appropriately in head-to-toe bamboo wear, demonstrating these items:
The attention to detail on the laptop case is impressive, right down to the external USB port access, shoulder strap attachments, carry handle, magnetic clasps, internal elastic keeper strap and red felt lining. And how about that chic mobile phone?
Due to the time intensive nature of his craft, Lekuama makes these items for sale in very small quantities. However, his dream is to establish a training center where he can transfer his skills to young Cameroonians and build a community of artisan microentrepreneurs.”
Obviously, agricultural shows in Africa are a great resource for AfriGadgets.
I was driving down a street in Nairobi today and did a double-take when I saw a man standing by a motorized bicycle. One u-turn (of questionable legality) later and I was chatting with Samuel Magethe, a local carpenter who does house calls. Apparently, he usually carries his toolbox and wood supplies on the back of the bicycle, though he didn’t have them with him today. He has used the bike for 2 years and says that it’s a great help to him as he gets older and has problems with the hills.
I talked with Samuel for a while and found out that he had bought the engine and bicycle in downtown Nairobi. Since I had to go downtown anyway, I decide to hunt out the seller and see if I could get the background story on where the motors come from and the specs on them.
It turns out that the engines, and bicycles, are imported from the ADTEC Corporation in Japan. (As an aside, it appears that Adtec motorcycles are part of the big influx of Asian motorcycles being used as taxis in E. Africa.) It’s a 48cc 2-stroke engine that has a top speed of 40Kph (25mph). The tank can hold 2 litres of fuel and they claim that it gets 70 kilometres per litre.
You can buy the bicycle plus engine for 15,000 Ksh ($200) or just the motor for 10,000 Ksh ($135).
The company that sells them in Kenya, Adventure Technology Company Ltd, has their main office in downtown Nairobi, where they had their last two bikes that weren’t sold. In 2009 they imported 500 bicycles and sold them in their 13 branches across the country. The branch manager, Julius Lumumba, tells me it’s a good business, and they sell very quickly – especially up country in places like Kakamega, Bunguma and Kisumu.
[Note: I forgot my cameras today, so I just had my iPhone to do the pictures/video with, thus the lower-res, sorry.]
I was in Lamu in June and came upon a metal workshop tucked away behind the front row of buildings on the main path from Lamu Town to Shela. Inside were two blacksmiths, Adam Marabu and Abdul Ahmed, working diligently at creating a new anchor. What caught my eye though, was the bellows. They had taken old cement bags and hooked them up to metal pipes in the floor that fed air into the make-shift furnace.
Here’s a short video with some footage of them at work:
One of my favorite stories on AfriGadget was the other unique bellows I found, this time in Nairobi, made out of an old bicycle. Both of these go examples go to show what can be done with very little. It’s about improvising what you have and overcoming a challenge.
Adam and Abdul make all types of items, but they told me that their main products are anchors, which range from small to large (2000-5000/= or $26-65) and, chisels and coconut shellers. They create a lot of the small metal pieces on the local dhows, and also make doors and window frames for the homes in the town. Really, they can make just about anything that you desire, like experienced metal workers anywhere in the world. What’s amazing is what they do it with.
With one 5 liter bag of chlorine, and a device that costs $3 to build, you can clean 100,000 liters of water.
Here at Maker Faire Africa is Killian Deku, a Ghanaian working in the IDDS program, has created a ball valve chlorine doser with the help of his team mates from India, the US and Tanzania. Their only real costs were the ball valve and the time taken to create the bamboo structure that holds it. The one variable cost is the bag of chlorine used to cleanse the water.
This is part of an ongoing series of posts on the FLAP bag project, a collaborative effort by Timbuk2, Portable Light and Pop!Tech. We at AfriGadget are helping to field-test these bags that have solar power and lighting on them, and get interviews of the individuals using them.
Day 2: The buckets arrive
This is a continuation of yesterday’s starting video diary, where I received the flaps to the FLAP bag. Saturday morning the package from Timbuk2 was on our doorstep waiting to be opened. The bottom part of the bags had arrived, but there were a few surprises in store for me…
This is part of an ongoing series of posts on the FLAP bag project, a collaborative effort by Timbuk2, Portable Light and Pop!Tech. We at AfriGadget are helping to field-test these bags that have solar power and lighting on them, and get interviews of the individuals using them.
Day 1: The flaps arrive
The FLAP bag kits started to arrive Friday evening. The buckets (bottom part of the bag) from Timbuk2 had not yet been delivered at this point, so all I had was the flaps.
Zambikes is a project that retrofits bicycles by adding a trailer. This is especially useful in rural Zambia (and other parts of Africa) where there aren’t many cars to get the sick to hospital, much less an ambulance.
Watch how the ‘Zambulance’ retrofit is made…
The ‘ZamCart’
A multipurpose trailer
Interestingly, the Zambike project sells and outfits bikes under the local brand name of ‘Amaka Sana’, the Bemba word for ‘very strong’ .
Straying from the usual fare for a couple days, I wanted to post an interview that I did with Rob Katz, who runs a blog focused on businesses and entrepreneurs who are creating wealth at the “bottom of the pyramid” – those that make up the poorest 1 billion on the planet. It’s called NextBillion.net
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.
One of my favorite stories on AfriGadget has been of Philip Isohe and his hobby of making very detailed (and working) model airplanes and buses made from scratch. Earlier this year, the ArtBots Show contacted me to get Philip to create one for them that they could show at their annual show in Dublin, Ireland that is happening this weekend. The airplane will be given away as a prize at the show.
They also asked me to create a video of Philip to use at the show:
Philip with the final airplane, painted and working:
