Hash at Afrigadget reports on the plans for a Maker Faire-Africa 2009:
The focus here is not on high-tech, but on manufacturing. Specifically, fabrication, the type of small and unorganized businesses that pop up wherever an entrepreneur is found on the African continent. It gets exciting when you think about gathering some of the real innovators from this sector into one place where they can...
Proprietor of the Le Grand Dakar restaurant Chef Pierre Thiam, has published a book which celebrates the cosmopolitan cuisine of westernmost tip of the continent -Yolele! Recipes From the Heart of Senegal:
The recipes in this book reflect my personal odyssey,my travels through West Africa,Europe and finally here,where from my New York address I've seen the world. They showcase the repertoire of...
Hash reports from Skunkworks on a slew of locally developed software applications, Tulipe,Kikwe(airtime delivery), Jahazi and Timetabler which is a:
Desktop application that works in rural, unconnected Africa on old computers. It’s a perfect example of Africans developing software for their own needs, instead of just importing solutions created for a different world...[continue...
More from the world of fabbing,David Schneider at IEEE Spectrum writes about Techshop a model worthy of emulation throughout the continent:Its a high‑tech workshop open to anyone who pays a modest membership fee. Think of it as a health club for geeks. Instead of treadmills and elliptical trainers, you’ll find laser and plasma cutters, milling machines and lathes, oscilloscopes and frequency...
The World Bank yesterday released its new Human Opportunity Index report. This first round focused on Latin America because of the extremes of inequality presented by the region; however, future rounds will be extended to other parts of the world. According to the press release:The study also finds that between one fourth (Colombia) and one half (Guatemala) of income inequality among Latin American adults is due to circumstances outside of their control, faced in the beginning of their lives. Race is a key factor to explain income differentials, especially for the most disadvantaged groups.As longitudinal data develops over the next few years, it will be interesting to see how inequality of opportunity and attitudes to the private sector relate. My guess? High levels of inequality will...
from the St Petersburg Times By RICHARD DANIELSON;TAMPA -- Even in kindergarten, R.J. struggled in school, saying he often felt like a "bad boy" who was "dumb."His problems included behavioral or emotional disabilities, frustration at not keeping up with classmates and a lack of coping skills.Within two years, he was suspended regularly for being disruptive. But an advocacy group says Hillsborough schools failed to give him adequate counseling and support.Now three civil rights groups say that kind of missed opportunity deprives R.J. and students like him of the chance to learn.The Southern Poverty Law Center, the Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities and the NAACP filed a 20-page complaint Wednesday with the state Department of Education over Hillsborough's treatment of students...
The Cisco Networking Academy in Kenya, one of the largest education initiatives, has empowered students with IT skills in hopes of creating a better standard of living in some of the poorest cities-company websiteWatch related video......
from the Indianapolis Star By Bill McCleeryA prestigious award from the U.S. Department of Education has sparked a spirit of celebration at Hawthorne Elementary School in Warren Township.The school won recognition for two consecutive years of making "adequate yearly progress" under goals set forth by the federal No Child Left Behind law despite serving a high-poverty area.The award -- formally called the "Distinguished Title 1 School Award" -- essentially declared Hawthorne the state's top model for schools serving low-income populations."This year we have 68 percent (of students) receiving the free and reduced lunch," said Principal Phil Talbert, referring to the federal program for students from low-income families."The research says high-poverty kids cannot achieve as high as kids...
Africa Science News reports on a welcome example of spinoff research:
Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) together with a Nanyuki-based Self Help Centre, will soon make farmers breath a sigh of relief while buying cheap, economical and good quality fuel.This is thanks to a biodiesel project run by the University which might soon go commercial. The technology...
The very reliable Program for Research on Private Higher Education recently released a study of Thai private higher education. With the returns to higher education growing rapidly in many developing countries - including Thailand - the question of expanding access to higher education is no small matter. According to the new study, Inside Thai Private Higher Education, private higher education has been growing like gangbusters: Thai PHEIs [private higher education institutions] have grown into one of the principal industries in producing manpower for the job markets in both domestic and international realms. In 2006, approximately 45 percent of the total Thai higher education institutions are private with the enrollment share of 13 percent (Praphamontripong forthcoming). In fact, over the...
Today saw the birth of www.thembinkosifoundation.com. This is a particularly exciting development for us as it's another step on the way to turning a vision into reality. I'm also personally quite proud of myself as I built the website myself! No great shakes to many I'm sure but it's an achievement that I am proud of! It is rather basic but contains most of the importnat information about our plans to build and sustain a school/schools in Zambia and to provide outreach projects in the wider community we will serve.The Thembinkosi Foundation promotes the interests of those affected by HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa....
Update from the world of fabbing the folks over at OpenSourceMachine designers of the Multi-machine covered earlier have released the freely accesible how to build a multi-machine book......
New Farm profiles the work of entrepreneur farmers, El-Hadji Hane and Gora Ndiaye:
Through local farmer organizing, commercial promotion of agroforestry and international connections, two college friends are nurturing sustainable initiatives along the tourist-impacted “Little Coast” of Senegal...One of the central goals of sustainable agriculture is to revitalize rural areas, to protect rural...
Discovery Channel profiles innovators from the Honey Bee Network covered earlier:
via AIDG...
White African reports on student ingenuity in Kenya:
My good friend Josiah Mugambi in Nairobi was at the Kenya chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) exhibition in Nairobi last weekend. This is where students showcase their innovation in engineering, ICT, mobile application and renewable energy. He did me a great favor by sharing some pictures and research that he...
Much of the lament following the latest failed talks of the Doha Round centered on liberalization of trade in agriculture. The hope, at least in part, was that a reduction in subsidies in the developed world could provide a stimulus to farmers in the developing world (never mind that the global rise in food prices would have been exacerbated in the short run by a reduction in subsidies). Coupled with the failed talks is a slowdown in the OECD economies, reducing overall demand for exports from the developing world. What's a developing country to do?Jamaica has an idea - an article in the most recent International Higher Education points out that the island country is trying to position itself as an exporter of educational services. Forget about trade in physical goods; the General...
This week HOORC staff is reviewing the draft plan for development of the Maun Campus of the University of Botswana. Recommendations of the draft plan include undergraduate teaching programmes in natural resources management and tourism. Recently arrived in the library is Inside and out : universities and education for sustainable development, edited by Robert Forrant and Linda Silka, which...
From the NextPrize blog:
Before something is a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea. The X PRIZE Foundation (http://www.xprize.org ) is looking for your crazy green ideas to become the next X PRIZE. So with the help of Prize Capital we’ve created the $25,000 “What’s your crazy green idea?” Video Contest to find out what crazy ideas are out there that could become breakthroughs...[continue......
Korlyns Pharmaceuticals expands to Ghana and Liberia.
An overview of the swashbucking Exotix investment house-Mens Vogue
Mobile labs for the mathematically inclined.-Engineering News
EPS couriers joins the burgeoning package delivery industry.
A study on indigenous "Twsana Pig" production and...
CS Monitor reports on the Jhai PC project:
Jhai requires a 10-year plan from each community it works with. A local entrepreneur must come up with a business plan that will employ villagers, maintain the computers, and pay for Internet access and electricity. Jhai participates in the process, providing business training and support along with classes on how teachers can integrate the computers...
From the Google Africa blog:In February, we launched the East Africa Gadget Competition that saw students from 10 universities in 6 East African countries compete in creating and developing the "next big thing". Following several other such competitions around the world, the East Africa contest was the first of its kind for those of us on the African continent. It gave East African students in...
This Article is taken in its entirety from Pambazuka News, which in turn credits the New York Times for first publishing the article on July 20, 2008. The author and location are cited below.---------------------------------------------------- Kenya: Inside Nairobi, the next Palo Alto?2008-07-24 http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/internet/49685 Printer friendly version----------------------------------------------------In the republic of innovation, life is unfair. A relatively small number of places — all in wealthy countries or in China and India — create nearly every important technological advance. Consider Wilfred Mworia, a 22-year-old engineering student and freelance code writer in Nairobi, Kenya. In the four weeks leading up to Apple’s much-anticipated release of a new...
Apparently, degree mills - unaccredited universities - are a national security concern in Nigeria. The authorities mean business:[The National Council on Education] is partnered with the Department of State Services—Nigeria's secret service—in locating, arresting, and prosecuting operators of unapproved universities and satellite campuses....
For readers out there who are looking to work with non-profits, GOOD Magazine is hiring for a role to manage their relationships with non-profit organizations.
GOOD magazine’s business model is to take all (yes, 100%) of its subscription revenues and donate it to a selected group of non-profits. (And yes, Acumen Fund is one of the non-profit partners; you can subscribe and chose Acumen Fund here).
GOOD magazine is all about celebrating and sharing innovative ways to change the world for good. More interesting still, GOOD is part magazine, part movement. For example, on September 23rd in New York they are having an event called “Mavericks of Education” featuring Wendy Kopp, Ninive Calegari, and John Wood. I’m sure it will be a great way to spend an evening. From GOOD’s...
Back to school season is helping us all live smarter.
By WorldChanging Canada writer Peter ter Weeme.
If the shorter days and first signs of changing leaves haven’t reminded you of the waning days of summer, all of the ads and store windows screaming “Back to School” certainly will.
It used to be that we all took pride in nifty new clothes, book bags and school supplies. Back to school season was always about buying more new stuff. This year, however, everywhere you turn there are print and online articles about ways to applying the three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) to back to school preparations. From the Vancouver Sun to Green Living online, there’s no shortage of tips and advice.
No matter how conscious you are, it’s inevitable that you’ll need to make some...
At least that's the new finding from PREM in a paper on Rising Income Inequality in China. Coauthors Xubei Luo and Nong Zhu do a lot of number crunching using the China Economic, Population, Nutrition and Health Survey and find that while inequality has risen rapidly in China, strong growth has meant that all income groups have seen pretty substantial economic gains. Figure 1 provides a pretty clear picture of the rise in inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient:
As the authors explain in the introduction:...widening income inequality in China is not the result of stagnant income growth in certain segments of society or regions - all sub-national areas, including lagging inland rural areas, and the entire population, including the less affluent, has experienced gains in...
The Financial Times reports today that Tata Motors, the company behind the Rs100,000 (US$2280) Nano mini car, has faced protests over the location of its factory. Some 2,000 state police blocked the road to the factory in West Bengal. Protestors are concerned that farmers have been unfairly displaced from Tata's 1,000-acre site. On the upside for Tata, FT reports that it has received proposals for relocation from at least nine Indian states. I guess the diminutive Nano is in demand. This doesn't seem to be the only case in India's recent history of such protests, though.
Vedanta University, the brainchild of Indian businessman Anil Agarwal, has also faced opposition over its sprawling campuses in the state of Orissa. Agarwal wants a truly elite university for...
The debate continues over at Creative Capitalism, the blog/book-to-be spurred by Bill Gates's speech at Davos. Meanwhile, Gates gives a hint at just how to create Creative Capitalism - get universities involved. At a forum in Hong Kong, Gates argued that universities need to team up with industry to drive innovation. More resources on university-industry collaboration are available here. ...
In an earlier post, I discussed the Indian approach to workforce development. A lot of Indian companies spend a lot of money on in-house training for their employees. Although I didn't mention it at the time, one of the things that puzzled me is why companies would invest so much money on in-house training; employees could simply leave after a short tenure, and the company would have lost money on the cost of the training. One explanation could be that the skills provided through this kind of training are highly firm-specific, but I find that proposition dubious. An article in the Financial Times today made me think of another possibility:India's outsourcing industry is battling a rising number of "résumé cheats" - recruits who lie about their experience or qualifications -...
From the TED Blog:
For four weeks at IDDS, some 50 students from more than 20 countries designed and built new tools that could improve quality of life in some of the world’s poorest communities. Among the projects: * A device for decreasing the transmission rate of HIV/AIDS from mothers to their babies
* A charcoal-crushing machine to help make charcoal briquettes from carbonized corn cobs
*...