Gadgets in Africa: Solving everyday problems with African ingenuity
A mobile phone security system for your car
In Nyeri, Kenya a young man named Peterson Mwangi has created a way to start and switch off a car engine, via an SMS command from his cell phone. This is a lot like Morris Mbetsa’s anti-theft vehicle system using SMS of a couple years ago.
Author: Erik Hersman
Erik is the owner of White African, a blog about technology and Africa. He is the co-founder of Zangu, a new web and mobile phone application that he hopes will change communication in Africa.
AfriGadget is another web project of his, not that he doesn't have enough of those already...
View all posts by Erik Hersman
5 thoughts on “A mobile phone security system for your car”
Kudos to Mwangi. We need more Mwangis in Africa. Most of the inventors of the 17th and 18th centuries were not highly schooled. But they had a passion for what they did. Warning: protect your idea. Watch out for the greedy and shameless scavengers.
Haia, what a nice AfriGadget! Yes, Mwangi is right, we need more creativity taught in schools, step away from ex-cathedra teaching and show what inventing and being creative is all about.
Now, if there is one thing I’d wish then it’s that we find a way to get Safaricom & Co. into switching from A5/2 & a A5/0 to A5/1 or better on their GSM encoding. Imagine how easy it is to decode SMS and what damage this can cause. In Kenya and elsewhere where a lot of services are run via either SMS or GPRS.
PLUS: we urgently need someone at NTVKenya, a desk officer maybe, who tells us about the AfriGadget goodies on the NTVKenya video feed. Ama?
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Kudos to Mwangi. We need more Mwangis in Africa. Most of the inventors of the 17th and 18th centuries were not highly schooled. But they had a passion for what they did. Warning: protect your idea. Watch out for the greedy and shameless scavengers.
Haia, what a nice AfriGadget! Yes, Mwangi is right, we need more creativity taught in schools, step away from ex-cathedra teaching and show what inventing and being creative is all about.
Now, if there is one thing I’d wish then it’s that we find a way to get Safaricom & Co. into switching from A5/2 & a A5/0 to A5/1 or better on their GSM encoding. Imagine how easy it is to decode SMS and what damage this can cause. In Kenya and elsewhere where a lot of services are run via either SMS or GPRS.
PLUS: we urgently need someone at NTVKenya, a desk officer maybe, who tells us about the AfriGadget goodies on the NTVKenya video feed. Ama?
Very inspiring story. I would like to interview the creator of this for my research project. Can we connect? my email is kelechiea@gmail.com
interesting that people come with inventions that are already invented and on the market in Kenya since 2006 http://www.tramigo.com