“Make People Happy”

By- Okafor Chika U.

Make People Happy fondly called by its creator is a motorbike. No no no..!!! It’s not a motorbike.

It’s a six(6) passenger seater, modified 150cc powered, unique four wheeled vehicle, designed and fabricated by self taught maker, designer and motivator by the name Ibrahim Adekunle whose informal skill training is focused on soldering and welding of automobile radiators.

"Adekunle" whose make shift garage cum workshop is situated under the Opebi - Oregun link road bridge in Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria might be lacking cutting edge first world fabrication tools,equipment and a non conducive operable environment.

All but makes up for that shortcoming with an instinctive “Passion for Creation” devoid of earthly and societal distractions.

He picks a piece here, another piece there, a discarded shock absorber, adaptable ingredients to his wizardly brew that would form the basis of his conceptual unusual yet lovable motorbike known as “Make People Happy”.

“Make People Happy” is reflective of the creator's mind grounded in the sociable

nature of a people. An adept recreational rollerblader and skillful motorbike rider himself, he owns two or more power bikes but one cannot help to notice..is it a bike...is it an ATV..a car.. eye catching, head turning, colourful bike as it vroom's through the streets of ‘Eko’ either on a publicity drive for

hire or simply cruising away time making both his passengers and onlookers happy. Vroom Vroom....!!!

I must say that Ibrahim Adekunle is talented truth be told but one must also ask, how many more Adekunle’s are out there yearning to be heard in this cacophonous society.

Out of thick air: Refining tools and techniques of fog harvesting

Out of thick air: Refining tools and techniques of fog harvesting

by Peter Dizikes

In the arid Namib Desert on the west coast of Africa, one type of beetle has found a distinctive way of surviving. When the morning fog rolls in,the Stenocara gracilipes species, also known as the Namib Beetle, collects water droplets on its bumpy back, then lets the

moisture roll down into its mouth, allowing it to drink in an area devoid of flowing water.

What nature has developed, Shreerang Chhatre wants to refine, to help the world’s poor. Chhatre is an engineer and aspiring entrepreneur at MIT who works on fog harvesting, the deployment of devices that, like the beetle, attract

water droplets and corral the runoff. 




This way, poor villagers could collect clean water near their homes, instead of spending hours carrying water from distant wells or streams. In pursuing the technical and financial sides of his project,

Chhatre is simultaneously a doctoral candidate in chemical engineering at MIT; an MBA student at the MIT Sloan School of Management; and a fellow at MIT’s

Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship.

Access to water is a pressing global issue: the World Health Organization and UNICEF estimate that nearly 900 million people worldwide live without safe drinking water. The burden of finding and 

transporting that water falls heavily on women and children. “As a middle-class person, I think it’s terrible that the poor have to spend hours a day walking just to obtain a basic necessity,” Chhatre says.

A fog-harvesting device consists of a fence-like mesh panel, which attracts droplets, connected to receptacles into which water drips.

Chhatre has co-authored published papers on the materials used in these devices, and believes he has improved their efficacy.

“The technical component of my research is done,” Chhatre says. He is pursuing his work at MIT Sloan and the Legatum Center in order to develop a workable business plan for implementing fog-harvesting devices.

Interest in fog harvesting dates to the 1990s, and increased when new research on Stenocara gracilipes made a splash in 2001. A few technologists saw potential in the concept for people. One Canadian charitable organization, FogQuest, has tested projects in Chile and Guatemala.

Chhatre’s training as a chemical engineer has focused on the wettability of materials, their tendency to either absorb

or repel liquids (think of a duck’s feathers, which repel water). A number of MIT faculty have made advances in this area, including

Robert Cohen of the Department of Chemical Engineering; Gareth McKinley of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Michael Rubner of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Chhatre, who also received his master's degree in chemical engineering from MIT in 2009, is co-author, with Cohen and McKinley among other researchers, of three published papers on the kinds of fabrics and coatings that affect wettability.

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posted by Okafor Chika U.