Slashdot informs me today that a small group of Ugandans have an impressive dream: They intend to create their own space program with no help from the Ugandan government, and using only the local resources.
This is a big deal because Uganda is not the wealthiest country on earth, and so far space exploration has been the domain of large nations doing this for billion dollar science grants and military-industrial-complex testing of rocketry and other technology. Uganda has pretty much none of those things. At the moment, the team are designing airplanes, but they intend to move upwards as they gain more capability. (None of the team are professional engineers.)
Ideally, discoveries that this team makes will make space travel an order of magnitude less expensive, and thus more available to more people.
Showing posts with label Africa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Africa. Show all posts
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Tree Wall
The Sahara desert of northern Africa is spreading southward. This is very alarming to the countries on its border, who fear a loss of farm productivity and civil chaos as this kills their agricultural production and leads to swarms of people moving to the nearest city in the hopes of earning enough to sustain themselves.
Discovery News reports that 11 affected nations are cooperating to build a wall of trees that will halt the expansion in place. BBC reports that the trees prevent the desert from expanding by halting erosion, slowing the wind, and changing the ground conditions in a way that encourages water retention.
A big sticking point in this is money. All the nations must contribute land and money and effort if this is to succeed. If even one hole in the wall exists, the desert can push through the hole and around the rest of the wall, rendering it useless. And this region is not particularly famous for being wealthy. Unfortunately, the nations involved are doing this because they must. They must or conditions within will become much worse.
If this works, the affected countries could even push back the desert with additional walls, creating additional farmland and making their country more attractive to both agriculture and industry.
Discovery News reports that 11 affected nations are cooperating to build a wall of trees that will halt the expansion in place. BBC reports that the trees prevent the desert from expanding by halting erosion, slowing the wind, and changing the ground conditions in a way that encourages water retention.
A big sticking point in this is money. All the nations must contribute land and money and effort if this is to succeed. If even one hole in the wall exists, the desert can push through the hole and around the rest of the wall, rendering it useless. And this region is not particularly famous for being wealthy. Unfortunately, the nations involved are doing this because they must. They must or conditions within will become much worse.
If this works, the affected countries could even push back the desert with additional walls, creating additional farmland and making their country more attractive to both agriculture and industry.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Bike Recharge
Cell phones are popular in Africa. So are bikes. Africans are sad when their phone runs out of charge, because the landlines there suck. Discovery News is reporting that Nokia, the Finnish phone maker, has a device for recharging your phone by riding your bike.
The article describes it as being a fan that attaches to the bike, drawing power from the air resistance. 20 minutes of typical riding produces enough charge to power a simple device like a phone or music player for 40 minutes, which should prove a comforting companion to traveling Africans.
There is, of course, a physics catch to this, and that is that the energy doesn't just magically appear from nowhere. The fan would produce additional air resistance to riding at least in proportion to the amount of electricity produced. So it's not so much bike powered as African person powered. Still, being able to produce your own electricity in a country that usually has none is a pretty sweet deal.
The article describes it as being a fan that attaches to the bike, drawing power from the air resistance. 20 minutes of typical riding produces enough charge to power a simple device like a phone or music player for 40 minutes, which should prove a comforting companion to traveling Africans.
There is, of course, a physics catch to this, and that is that the energy doesn't just magically appear from nowhere. The fan would produce additional air resistance to riding at least in proportion to the amount of electricity produced. So it's not so much bike powered as African person powered. Still, being able to produce your own electricity in a country that usually has none is a pretty sweet deal.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Togolese Recycled Robots
The Lady Ada reports that in Togo, a young man is building robots....out of old TVs.
Why? For inspiration, he says. He's demonstrating that this kind of thing is indeed possible, contrary to the expectations of the local Africans who feel that building robots is not possible in their country, which lacks the financial resources of countries where robots are more common.
Why TV's? The video doesn't say, but I'm going to guess that A) It's a complicated device with many of the necessary parts, B) When they stop working, they're thrown away in favor of buying a newer, more capable model over being repaired, C) The parts that break aren't the ones that interest him, and D) They are immensely popular, so broken TVs can be found in immense quantities.
Nice going Sam. I'd totally buy one.
Why? For inspiration, he says. He's demonstrating that this kind of thing is indeed possible, contrary to the expectations of the local Africans who feel that building robots is not possible in their country, which lacks the financial resources of countries where robots are more common.
Why TV's? The video doesn't say, but I'm going to guess that A) It's a complicated device with many of the necessary parts, B) When they stop working, they're thrown away in favor of buying a newer, more capable model over being repaired, C) The parts that break aren't the ones that interest him, and D) They are immensely popular, so broken TVs can be found in immense quantities.
Nice going Sam. I'd totally buy one.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Nairobi Robot Fair
Did you know that Nairobi, Kenya, has an annual, university sponsors, robot building competition? Neither did I.
The article doesn't explain what these robots do, but they seem interesting and useful. Most of them seem to be for the purpose of conveying small items from one place to another.
The article doesn't explain what these robots do, but they seem interesting and useful. Most of them seem to be for the purpose of conveying small items from one place to another.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
The Windmill Genius of Malawi
In the small African country of Malawi, a young man, William Kamkwamba, had to teach himself when his parents ran out of scholarship money. He taught himself electricity, mechanical engineering, and then built the first windmill in the country. At first even his family thought he had gone crazy, until he proved that it did in fact produce power. It made 12 watts, and soon he was charging people to charge their phones.
Since then, he's massively upgraded everything, and now is attending a university in South Africa on full scholarship. I'm amazed, because when I was 22 I had pretty much no useful skills whatsoever. He says he would like to bring power to all Malawians, which is a tough task, since only 2% have electricity now.
Now if he can do all that he did with just some old books from a local library, imagine what he'll manage now that he has computers and the internet on his hands. (He says they boggle his mind right now, which means he's gaining a lot from them.)
I think the greatest aspect of this is proof to Africans that they can do amazing things on only a little education. (And that even a little knowledge is power.) I predict that all of Africa's fortunes will rise because of this.
Since then, he's massively upgraded everything, and now is attending a university in South Africa on full scholarship. I'm amazed, because when I was 22 I had pretty much no useful skills whatsoever. He says he would like to bring power to all Malawians, which is a tough task, since only 2% have electricity now.
Now if he can do all that he did with just some old books from a local library, imagine what he'll manage now that he has computers and the internet on his hands. (He says they boggle his mind right now, which means he's gaining a lot from them.)
I think the greatest aspect of this is proof to Africans that they can do amazing things on only a little education. (And that even a little knowledge is power.) I predict that all of Africa's fortunes will rise because of this.
Monday, May 11, 2009
The Rules of innovation
Over in White African, the author, a Kenyan who is Caucasian (yes, they exist), describes principles that drive innovation in Africa in general. The "White African" is his personal blog, he has another one, AfriGadget about African inventions in general. Technically, this is a reposting of Ethan Zuckerman's expose on the innovation that he routinely sees.
Africa is rather different from much of the rest of the world. It has been bled white of resources in a series of wars, after a long history of colonial rule, often kleptocratic. Many of its natural resources have grotesquely deteriorated. The northern part was, in ancient history, a lush forest, but is today the Saraha desert, a burning wasteland of sand and little else. The Savannah to the south is likewise difficult for human habitation.
Africans have generally been described as hungry for education and jobs to pull themselves out of desperate poverty. These things are not readily available, as the people are poor, the government is poor, the infrastructure was all destroyed in the last war, and even if the resources were available, many people are afraid to help out because the wars could restart at any minute now. (The less stable countries tend to abruptly collapse into a coup, which then decides that a border war would be an excellent idea.)
That said, apparently lots of Africans own cell phones, which they buy from Latin American companies. (Land lines? Long destroyed.) When there's no schooling to be had, Africans feel that owning a cell phone is prestigious. You can make calls, transfer money, even make some money. Apparently Africans will forgo eating for a week to afford a good phone.
Anwyay, I see these rules as relevant not only to Africa, but to me, here, in wealthy America. Innovation proceeded poorly in many of the wealthier eras, which had a remarkable lust for snake-oil, Veblen goods, and the most comedicly wrong thinking of all time. It was during the poorer and more threatened times that the real innovation shines through. Incidentally, my home state was initially populated with a gold rush, but guess who actually made the money? It wasn't the gold miners, it was the people who sold them things. (Forgot a pickaxe? Want eggs for breakfast instead of those iron rations? Need a pair of jeans that doesn't have a huge hole in the knees? I accept gold nuggets!) This is a wealthy time currently, so much of the discourse is bitching about how expensive everything is and wondering how to offshore more of it.
Working with culture is important because it's the basic framework of people's lives. It defines their sense of time, space, good and evil. Working against culture will make people find your work pointless, stupid, evil, or some combination of the three.
Use market measures. Giving stuff away encourages people to just take all they can until your resources are exhausted. People better respect what they have to pay for.
Start with what you've got. To build a train, you'd need rail, fuel, trainyards, train station, and a train engineer, but a bicycle fleet can be put together with what you've got.
Problems are not obvious from afar. The framework that applies to me does not apply to the various frameworks of Africa, nor would any of their frameworks apply to me. Tanzanian children love stationary bicycles and can use them for power generation because it's a fun novelty. American children probably have their own bike, yawn, boring. Many Africans are surviving on $1/day, an amount at which I would be homeless and on a starvation diet.
Infrastructure can produce more infrastructure. If trains are really important to you, you will find a way to build the rails. Cars are important to America, since we like the idea of a vehicle that obeys our personal individual will, so roads and highways are built up at great expense. In Africa, cell phones are quite common, so a network of solar powered car batteries have been developed to recharge them, and a young genius has a system to use cell phones to prevent grand theft auto. (Note to self: Find way to fund this.)
Most importantly, I want to see how running lean might work out. Anything of which I can reduce the expenses is a thing that can sell for cheaper, and hence more. Muhahaha.
Africa is rather different from much of the rest of the world. It has been bled white of resources in a series of wars, after a long history of colonial rule, often kleptocratic. Many of its natural resources have grotesquely deteriorated. The northern part was, in ancient history, a lush forest, but is today the Saraha desert, a burning wasteland of sand and little else. The Savannah to the south is likewise difficult for human habitation.
Africans have generally been described as hungry for education and jobs to pull themselves out of desperate poverty. These things are not readily available, as the people are poor, the government is poor, the infrastructure was all destroyed in the last war, and even if the resources were available, many people are afraid to help out because the wars could restart at any minute now. (The less stable countries tend to abruptly collapse into a coup, which then decides that a border war would be an excellent idea.)
That said, apparently lots of Africans own cell phones, which they buy from Latin American companies. (Land lines? Long destroyed.) When there's no schooling to be had, Africans feel that owning a cell phone is prestigious. You can make calls, transfer money, even make some money. Apparently Africans will forgo eating for a week to afford a good phone.
Anwyay, I see these rules as relevant not only to Africa, but to me, here, in wealthy America. Innovation proceeded poorly in many of the wealthier eras, which had a remarkable lust for snake-oil, Veblen goods, and the most comedicly wrong thinking of all time. It was during the poorer and more threatened times that the real innovation shines through. Incidentally, my home state was initially populated with a gold rush, but guess who actually made the money? It wasn't the gold miners, it was the people who sold them things. (Forgot a pickaxe? Want eggs for breakfast instead of those iron rations? Need a pair of jeans that doesn't have a huge hole in the knees? I accept gold nuggets!) This is a wealthy time currently, so much of the discourse is bitching about how expensive everything is and wondering how to offshore more of it.
Working with culture is important because it's the basic framework of people's lives. It defines their sense of time, space, good and evil. Working against culture will make people find your work pointless, stupid, evil, or some combination of the three.
Use market measures. Giving stuff away encourages people to just take all they can until your resources are exhausted. People better respect what they have to pay for.
Start with what you've got. To build a train, you'd need rail, fuel, trainyards, train station, and a train engineer, but a bicycle fleet can be put together with what you've got.
Problems are not obvious from afar. The framework that applies to me does not apply to the various frameworks of Africa, nor would any of their frameworks apply to me. Tanzanian children love stationary bicycles and can use them for power generation because it's a fun novelty. American children probably have their own bike, yawn, boring. Many Africans are surviving on $1/day, an amount at which I would be homeless and on a starvation diet.
Infrastructure can produce more infrastructure. If trains are really important to you, you will find a way to build the rails. Cars are important to America, since we like the idea of a vehicle that obeys our personal individual will, so roads and highways are built up at great expense. In Africa, cell phones are quite common, so a network of solar powered car batteries have been developed to recharge them, and a young genius has a system to use cell phones to prevent grand theft auto. (Note to self: Find way to fund this.)
Most importantly, I want to see how running lean might work out. Anything of which I can reduce the expenses is a thing that can sell for cheaper, and hence more. Muhahaha.
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