Gadgets

I’m proud to announce a brand new design for AfriGadget!

The old design was rather… old and ugly. I mocked up some ideas, and one of my friends was kind enough to take my amateur work and put a truly professional touch on it. (thanks Jared)

2 New Things:

The AfriGadget Grassroots Reporting Project
We’re intent on getting more AfriGadget contributors from all over Africa. Part of that plan is to find potential editors and set them up with a mobile phone with which to take pictures and do interviews. If you know someone that would make a good fit, let me know.

The AfriGadget Store (phase 1)
The first phase of the store is making some AfriGadget gear (t-shirts and mugs) available to everyone (hint: you can customize any design and select any type of shirt/color to put it on). The next step is to create a full-featured store with some of the items that are made by the entrepreneurs shown on AfriGadget. This would include products, as well as plans.

If you find any errors, which I’m sure there will be some, please leave a comment or shoot me an email. Thanks!

Bear Gets a Ride, originally uploaded by whiteafrican.

One of the benefits of being a consultant is that I get to make more of my own hours. This afternoon I carved out some time to spend with one of my daughters to build this contraption on wheels.

I’m not sure how to describe it, but it was fun to build…

We took a kit for a “make your own design” car with some wood, screws, axles and wheels. Then, I used an airplane engine that runs off a battery to give it forward motion. Why get all messy with glue? Just use rubber bands!

I’ve also taken to collecting Lego kits and building them with the girls. I know it doesn’t fit the mold for “girl stuff”, but it’s something that we can spend time together on and we all have a lot of fun doing it.

Two quick updates.

OLPC
First, the One Laptop Per Child project is finally in production. Better yet, if you would like one yourself, starting next week (Nov 12) you can get one yourself through their “Give 1 Get 1” initiative. I actually think I’ll be doing this.

The BOBs
This is your last week to vote on “The Best of Blogs“. It looks like there’s a number of African blogs in there now too, so it’s good to see that there was a lot of activity over the last month.

• Actualités de la République Démocratique du Congo in the best Weblog category
• Diário de um Sociólogo from Mozambique in best Portuguese blog

This morning I had some fun putting together some iPhone backgrounds (wallpapers) with an African theme. Or more correctly, a White African theme, since they tend to be about the things that interest me. You’ll find backgrounds with logos of different African web applications and websites.

Some specific sets are for AfriGadget, White African, African web apps, and Rift Valley Academy (my alma mater). You can find them all in this Flickr set. Enjoy!

If you have any good pictures that you think would make a great background, or if you have a web app logo that I missed, email it to me and I’ll see what I can do. Keep in mind, I’m not a designer – we’ll get a lot better African iPhone backgrounds once the real designers in Africa start getting busy.

The correct iPhone background size is 320 x 480 pixels at 166 resolution.

[Edit: Yes, I finally did break down and buy an iPhone... Yes, I know I'm a weak man for allowing myself to cave to this gadget craving. Thanks for asking. ]

It turns out that what Google is doing in the mobile space might not be a direct competitor to the iPhone, like was originally rumored. Google’s take on the space is going to be based around the idea of a Mobile OS – creating an open source alternative to Windows Mobile. If it includes a browser, then it will compete with Opera and Safari as well.

At the core of Google’s phone efforts is an operating system for mobile phones that will be based on open-source Linux software, according to industry executives familiar with the project. In addition, Google is expected to develop mobile versions of its applications that go well beyond the mobile search and map software it offers today.

Read more about this on the NY Times.

These rumors fit very well into the other rumor of a Google mobile payment system. Let’s hope it all pans out, I want to see more competition in both OS and the mobile/online payment space.

A Google rumor and a Google patent have had the tech world talking this week.

Someone noticed that there was a patent by Google for a mobile component to GPay, their online payment system. It’s not a new concept, but it will be interesting if they do pull it off in conjunction with the rumor circulating about the new Google GPhone.

You see, there is a void in the market for a payment system that is accepted globally, but not necessarily tied to a bank or phone carrier. Any thoughts I have on what will eventually happen once they roll out any new device and/or payment system are pure speculation. I would like to believe that Google has a bigger picture in mind than just the US market when developing it though.

I’m sure the services work best together, but they would never tie a payment system to just one device. I’ll be happy to see either of them work in Africa. The GPay model branching out would make me the most excited though.

[I also find it interesting that PayPal is having some serious problems at the same time as rumors of this are coming out. PayPal needs some serious competition, and I hope this is it.]

I can’t imagine what a month it has been for William Kamkwamba. A few years ago he showcased his innate willingness to learn and overcome life’s challenges by teaching himself how to build a windmill from scratch. Using only local materials, he created electricity for his home, in a village that had none.

He was the posterchild for TEDGlobal 2 weeks ago. William represented what so many at the conference understood about African entrepreneurship, creativity and ingenuity. He now sits in a position to further those dreams.

Now, with the help of TED and an unnamed benefactor, he has started his own blog, is using a TED-borrowed computer and has an email address. Currently, his mentor in Malawi Dr. Hartford Mchazime, is working with TED to find a good school for him to finish up at. Since William has an obvious bent towards mechanics and engineering, they are looking into opportunities to further his education in those areas as well. What a life changing event TEDGlobal was for him!

So, welcome to the African blogger ranks William, you are a very welcome addition.

For the first 2 days at TEDGlobal few had heard of William. Since I had written about him late last year on AfriGadget, I realized who he was and had a chance to talk with him during one of the evening events. He is a very quiet individual, and seemed a little overwhelmed by the conference. This is a life changing event for him, and from the personality I saw in the time we had together, I would guess that he will leverage it for greater things. He’s one of the guys I hope to be writing about again in the near future, and I think I will be…

[note: this was written on Thursday of last week, but my site went down... I almost lost my mind. True story.]

I was given a moment to share some of the stories from AfriGadget here at TEDGlobal. Speaking in front of this group was a little unsettling, so I tried to prepare something that was both to the point and interesting.

My main point was this:

African’s are bending the little they have to their will, using creativity to overcome life’s challenges.

The examples on AfriGadget showcase African ingenuity, the type of ingenuity born of necessity.

I did a quick recap recording of what I said, or at least what I think I said, since it’s all a blur now…

I’ll never be able to look at another conference the same way again… There has been an incredible amount of work done to make TEDGlobal happen and opperate smoothly. The logistics of getting 400 people back and forth between 10 hotels is one of the most impressive things I’ve seen.

As one African blogger told me, “Next time I’m at a conference, I’m going to be asking them why they only have one type of free beer available!?”

On top of how well it’s been run, the amazing internet connectivity speed, food and logistics, they spoiled us even more. All of the TED Fellowship attendees have been given a free Mac or PC, donated by Google and AMD, and a new satellite radio by Worldspace.

I’ll be picking a Mac.

There are two individuals here at TEDGlobal that it has been a great honor to meet. They are inventors, on the ground in Africa, creating solutions that will work in their area. These are great success stories that need to be celebrated, encouraged and supported.

William Kamkwamba was 14 when he found a tattered old book that taught how to build a windmill. This was a big deal, seeing as his small village in Malawi had no electricity. The generator, made from old bicycle parts and PVC piping powers his families lights and radios. (original coverage on AfriGadget with images)

Moussa Keita is staying at my hotel, so I’ve had the pleasure of spending a good deal of time with him. Moussa worked with Geekcorps on a project building a CanTV in Mali. (see original coverage on Geekcorps, and watch the video)

(more images of TEDGlobal on Flickr)

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative has been working for years to bring a $100 laptop to children in 3rd world countries. They have gotten all the way to the mass-prototype phase, meaning they’re getting a lot of these computers created and put into the hands of children. In order to get to a full-scale production operation, they need 3 million of them ordered by the governments of these countries.

Enter the bad guy: Intel

Intel, suddenly seeing the importance of being relevant to this future massive consumer base, has designed their own version of the $100 laptop. Called the “Classmate”, Intel’s version will have it’s chip inside instead as opposed to the OLPC which will have their competitor, AMD’s, chip.

The hard part comes when you start thinking about OLPC’s goals. If they really do want every child to have their own laptop, doesn’t Intel’s Classmate boost the chances of that happening, even if it’s not the OLPC computer?

I’m all for competition and an open market. However, the problem I have in this instance is the proof that Intel is playing dirty. They are actually going to the same countries that OLPC is going to, trying to take the funding from the OLPC and get it invested in them instead. They’re trying to kill the OLPC. (Interestingly enough, the document proof is out of Nigeria)

Aren’t there enough poor countries in the world where the children could benefit from these computers? Surely there is enough that OLPC and Intel can both go out and sell their wares without fighting over the same turf. Intel loses this one on poor form and scores a bad karma point.

Make sure you watch the video of this, and read some more to get the whole story.

Besides WhiteAfrican.com, I also write two other African technology-related blogs. AfriGadget is a team blog, dedicated to showcasing African ingenuity. African Signals is a multimedia outlet for interviews, videos and podcasts on news and news makers in Africa.

African Signals
The last week few weeks have been very interesting for me, primarily because I’ve had the chance to do a number of Skype interviews with entrepreneurs and technologists around Africa. I’ve found that video and audio editing is time consuming, but the experience has proved to be extremely rewarding. I’d like to start adding a weekly news overview, so look for that soon.

Besides interviews, I’m starting to push more of African multimedia content towards African Signals. With my upcoming trip to South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania look for more interviews and reports from those countries soon.

Recent posts:

How Big is South Africa’s Informal Sector? (Video)

Refurbished Computers for Schools in Kenya (Video)

AfriGadget
AfriGadget keeps on rolling. Interestingly enough, even though we’re always scrambling for new stories and it gets update irregularly, AfriGadget has the most pickups by major news outlets out of all the blogs that I write. More than 500 people pull the blog feed, and it has shown up on very large sites ranging from MAKE:magazine to BoingBoing to Wired.

Recent posts:

Solar Power in Madagascar (Video)

Creating Windmills from Old Bicycle Parts and Roofing Materials

African Children’s Toys: Ingenuity Starts at a Young Age

Summary
I want to thank everyone who links to, comments and contributes to all of these web sites. If you see a great example of African ingenuity, have news to share, or come across someone that should be interviewed, send me an email through my contact form.

What a stroke of luck! I never thought I’d be leaving here with a Nintendo Wii.

I entered into the Ask.com Experts session. Funnily enough, they asked a venture capital question trying to find a “VC expert”. No one could answer the question, “who writes VentureBlog?” – interestingly enough, I wrote about him yesterday, and David Hornik commented on it… (By the way, I’m NOT a VC expert)

The best thing about this is now I don’t need to think up an excuse to tell my wife in order to buy one.

Say you ride a bicycle to work everyday, well now you can charge your mobile phone’s battery at the same time. This is the concept that Motorola embraced to come up with their new bicycle system. Engadget is reporting that they are originally designed with the Chinese market in mind, but in further reading you can see that they are thinking of all emerging markets, including Africa.

“For people living in emerging markets, energy is a scarcity,” Motorola chief executive Ed Zander said Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show. “In Southeast Asia, rural China and Latin America, we can actually put this in, hook it up and charge this device while we are riding a bike.”

It’s kind of strange to see Motorola behind this, but it does make sense. I’m interested in hearing what others have to say about this within the African blogosphere. I’d also like to know more about costs.

I love MAKE Magazine – it’s one of the few that I subscribe to. I also started AfriGadget in part because of MAKE, and also because of my love for gadgets, hand-made projects and the realization that people just don’t know how much of this goes on in Africa.

Anyway, MAKE has released an “Open Source Gift Guide“:

There are hundreds of gift guides this holiday season filled with junk you can buy – but a lot of time you actually don’t own it, you can’t improve upon it, you can’t share it or make it better, you certainly can’t post the plans, schematics and source code either. We want to change that, we’ve put together our picks of interesting open source hardware projects, open source software, services and things that have the Maker-spirit of open source.

You’ve really got to check this one out.