How to Build a DIY Solar Oven

From: TreeHugger


By: Sami Grover


From a heat-storing solar grill to solar ovens created for an international market, we've seen plenty of commercial models of sun-powered cooking devices. And from a solar oven death match to an oven created from old CDs, we've featured a few DIY varieties too. 


But there are now some promising signs that solar cooking is going mainstream, with Popular Mechanics featuring a build-your-own solar oven project for your average DIY enthusiast. Like most solar ovens, the Popular Mechanics Hot-Box Solar Cooker is ultimately a pretty simple affair. Consisting of an open plywood box, some foam insulation, reflectors, a glass top, and some black spray-paint, it is quite simply a mini-greenhouse with heat absorbing walls. But it's this very simplicity that I find so attractive about solar cookers. 


While we are spending billions chasing exciting technologies like plug-in hybrids, solar photovoltaic panels and the like, it is easy to forget that solar energy can be deployed, sometimes for next to nothing, to heat our homes, cook our food, warm our showers, dry our clothes, and generally do what it does best—heat things up.


Sure, let's continue to pursue high-tech solar technology any and every way we can. But let's also remember to pick the low hanging fruit first. And just in case the Popular Mechanics version looks like too much hard work, here's a video of a similar design built out of cardboard for $7.50(N1,200).


see also: Solar Storage Oven , Kinyanjui Jiko Stove , DIY Solar Oven With Sun Tracker

MedAfrica

From: Technology Review


By David Talbot


How One Mobile Startup Is Changing Health Services In Africa


Mobile health platforms are fast emerging in Kenya, where one startup's newly launched mobile health platform is attracting nearly 1,000 downloads daily, and the dominant telecom, Safaricom, has forged a partnership that will give its 18 million subscribers access to doctors.


A World Bank official sees significant promise from such efforts, pointing to the fact that 50 percent of all Kenyan banking is already done on mobile phones—suggesting that the population is ready to go mobile with health care, too.


"In terms of providing basic services through mobile phones on the continent, Kenya is in the lead in many ways, and showing the way," says Elizabeth Ashbourne, director of global health information forums at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. "Local applications in the health space are absolutely frontier activities."


Many Kenyans have serious health problems; for example, according to the World Health Organization, more than 30 percent of children under age five show stunted growth. At present, only 7,000 doctors serve a nation of 40 million people. But Kenya is rich in mobile phones, with 25 million subscribers (Africa has more than 600 million of them).


The new app, called MedAfrica—available for smart phones and less powerful feature phones—is the product of Shimba Technologies, a Nairobi-based company founded by two locally educated entrepreneurs, Stephen Kyalo and Keziah Mumo, with $100,000 in seed money from a European VC.

Shimba's business model is straight from Silicon Valley: free content supported by advertising, with future plans to offer premium content for a subscription, and to charge doctors about $10 a month for access to its user base. Of the 25,000 people who have downloaded since the launch in November, 60 percent are "active users," says Kyalo. Shimba has not yet sold ads or begun trying to get doctors to pay.


The ambitions are ultimately pan-African. "The goal is to have MedAfrica as a household name in African homes and to provide increased health care to the masses," Kyalo says. "We want to impact the lives in Africa. People still are dying from malaria. The problem is too few heads with vital information."


see also: mediacaffeine ,  technology.inc , venturebeat , whiteafrican

"TxtCash"

By: BizTechAfrica

Globacom launches TxtCash

Nigerian-based operator Globacom has brought mobile money transfer services to its subscribers.

Globacom this week launched its mobile money transfer service, Glo TxtCash, with Afripay and Stanbic IBTC bank.

The service allows mobile subscribers to transfer money to any mobile number, or spend the money directly from their mobile money account to pay for goods or buy airtime.

Glo says more mobile money operators will also have access to its 23 million subscribers.

The Central Bank of Nigeria has approved the commercial rollout of mobile money services by 11 entities.

see also: Afrigadget , MPESA , CGAP

"The Whill"

From: GizMag

Wheelchair users with full use of their arms generally don't need electric wheelchairs ... but

sometimes, especially if those users have long distances to cover, it sure would be nice to have one. Instead of going out and buying themselves a full electric wheelchair, however, those people may soon have the option of using a WHILL. The prototype device clamps onto the wheels of an existing manual wheelchair, temporarily providing it with electric drive

The WHILL incorporates two circular "hubs" (for lack of a better word) that attach to

the outside center of both of the wheelchair's wheels. These hubs are joined by a curved control section, which bridges over the user's waist. The angle of that section can initially be manually adjusted by the user, then locked into place by locking the hubs onto the wheels.

Each of the hubs contains a separate 24-volt motor, powered by a lithium-ion battery pack.

These turn the chair's wheels, propelling it up to a top speed of 20 km/h (12.5 mph).

The battery reportedly takes two hours to charge, and offers a range of approximately 30 kilometers (19 miles).

Not unlike piloting a Segway, users steer by leaning in the direction that they wish to travel, with a force sensing mechanism in the control section varying the rotational speed of the wheels accordingly.

WHILL the company, which is based in Japan, is now looking for wheelchair users to help field test the device. Those users' feedback will influence the design of the final, commercial product.

see also: Physorg

Window-Farming: The Start Of Urban Gardening Revolution

From: fastcoexist

Ariel Schwartz writes:

Sure, it’s easy to build and maintain a vertical garden in your window if you’ve got a green thumb.

But like most things, gardening is easier if it’s a social activity.

Chances are, that’s why Windowfarms—an open-source hydroponic gardening system with an online community of over 26,000 windowfarmers around the world—has been so successful. In addition to legions of fans are, Windowfarms now has over $230,000 in Kickstarter funding, making it the most successful food project on the site ever

The year-old Windowfarms project makes it easy for gardening enthusiasts to get started. Just follow the instructions to build a windowfarm or buy one directly, stick the Windowfarm in a sun-filled window, and start growing your garden. If you buy a Windowfarm, you can even elect to receive baby plants, ranging from red leaf lettuce to oregano.

But if you’re a gardening novice? The previous generation of the Windowfarms syst

em may have been a little intimidating. The latest iteration of the design is much easier to build—and it’s cheaper to buy, with a price tag of $99, compared to the older price of $249. Instead of using empty plastic bottles, the new version uses "environmentally friendly plastic and wire" that easily snap together.

Windowfarms surpassed its $50,000 Kickstarter goal long ago, but people are still lining up to pre-order the new design. It shouldn’t be a surprise. Hydroponic gardening is quickly gaining traction across the country as a fresh alternative to the withered produce so often found in grocery stores. And because Windowfarms has a strong online community that’s willing to answer questions like "How on earth do you get the inflation needle to stay onto the check valve!?," there’s no reason why the project can’t balloon into an even bigger crowdsourced urban gardening revolution.

Africa’s Most Powerful Supercomputer

From: TechCentral

By: Craig Wilson

African Supercomputer To Research Climate Change, HIV and Alternative Fuels

A Sun Microsystems hybrid, with 23TB of RAM and 2 800 processor cores, generating 60 trillion floating-point operations per second. That’s what Dell, the CSIR, the Centre for High Performance Computing and the University of Cambridge have built in Cape Town.

It’s being billed as the fastest supercomputer in Africa. Housed by a CSIR facility, the setup was ranked as one of the top-500 supercomputers on earth at this year’s Supercomputing Conference in Seattle.

The CSIR hopes it can put it to use solving African problems, empowering African research and encouraging foreign academics to come to South Africa to work.

The CSIR’s requirements were simple: it needed a new supercomputer and it wanted it to rank in the prestigious list put out by the Supercomputing Conference — and it needed it in less than a month if it was to qualify.

Dell Africa GM Stewart van Graan says the company had the machine operational within three weeks of receiving the order. Dell, he says, is seeing more interest in supercomputers from mainstream businesses such as retailers and mining and exploration companies. “Any time you’re dealing with as much data as they do, the application of a supercomputer becomes relevant.”

Much of the research required to build a computer like the one the CSIR requested comes from Dell’s longstanding relationship with Cambridge University, where it assists in the formulation of white papers concerning supercomputing.

Though the CSIR hopes to make the computer available to anyone in Africa in need of its capabilities, Van Graan says the greatest obstacle — and one that affects much of Africa — is lack of bandwidth. “Power and bandwidth are the two biggest challenges in Africa,” he says.

Though Dell says it “leveraged global relationships” in building the machine, local people were trained to maintain it. This was one of the stipulations of the deal with the CSIR.

Van Graan says that as supercomputers become more common in Africa, they will be invaluable in solving real-world problems through simulations, like looking at traffic systems and urban growth. He says more university departments, from finance to the humanities, have to crunch more data and that SA is now better equipped to deal with it.

“Big data is no longer just the realm of scientific research,” he says.

Happy Sithole, director of the Centre for High Performance Computing who was involved with the project from the outset, says the CSIR hopes the system will allow it to work on solutions for challenges such as HIV/Aids, malaria and climate change by building complex scientific and mathematical models.

The complexity of a model used to assess the impact of a tsunami, for example, requires huge data sets. Sithole says the supercomputer is already being used by different research groups around the country who have been selected for the type of work they do.

“For example, the group that works on the HIV mutation mechanism looks at understanding how the HI virus mutates in a human immune system,” Sithole says. “This type of study requires a large number of combinations that should be computed and thus the supercomputer provides a quick way of understanding all the possible scenarios, which could otherwise not have been explored.”

Academic institutions are provided access if their projects “meet the criteria of problems that are relevant for parallel processing” and if the research is in areas that are in the government priority areas and helps train students.  

see also: Sun MicroSystems , SA(Science)

Mukonitronics

Mukonitronics was established in 1990, by a team of Zimbabwean Engineers for the design and manufacture of industrial and consumer electronics systems.


Today, Mukonitronics products are used in Mining, Grain and Tobacco Processing, Plastics, Computers and Information Technology, Solar Systems Application, Energy Generation and Transmission, Industrial Automation, Systems Re-Engineering, Transport and Communications. 


Because the company has design capabilities, the products are manufactured to suit the environment under which they are expected to work. Now incorporating microprocessor technology, Mukonitronics products are now designed for the 21st century.


In addition Mukonitronics provides an after sales service designed to ensure that the products carry a longer usage time. Back up is therefore assured anywhere in the world. We service to component level.


As a result of exports since 1996, Mukonitronics has consistently increased its turnover and workforce by over 120% at peak production periods. The company employs highly skilled Engineers and Technicians who are truly hands on. We also offer practical attachment training to University and college students from all over Zimbabwe.



Interview with: Co-founder @ TechZim

"Ready Set" Micro Power Solutions

From: mckinsey on society

Today, 1.6 billion people live without electricity. Fenix Intl is a renewable energy startup focused on serving the “base of the pyramid” for Frontier and Emerging Markets. Fenix has begun mass-producing a micro-power solution called the ReadySet. The ReadySet is an intelligent battery system that can charge from a solar panel, a bicycle generator, and the electric grid. The stored energy can then be used to charge mobile phones, power lights to replace candles and kerosene, and even run medical devices in rural off-grid clinics.

more: products , charging

Bamboo As A Substitute For "Charcoal"- Jump Starting The Bioenergy Sector and Combating Climate Change

From: Physorg




Bamboo, a plant not often associated with Africa, may be the key to combating soil degradation and massive deforestation on the continent as an alternative source of energy.


A partnership among African nations and communities, the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) and China are working to substitute bamboo charcoal and firewood for forest wood on which 80 percent of the rural population in sub-Saharan Africa depends for its fuel needs.


Initial successes with bamboo charcoal in Ethiopia and Ghana, which have put bamboo biomass at the center of renewable energy policies, are spurring interest in countries across the continent and prompting calls for greater investment in bamboo-based charcoal production as a 'green biofuel' that can fight deforestation and mitigate climate change.


"Bamboo, the perfect biomass grass, grows naturally across Africa and presents a viable, cleaner and sustainable alternative to wood fuel," said Dr. J. Coosje Hoogendoorn, Director General of INBAR . "Without such an alternative, wood charcoal will remain the primary household energy source for decades to come—with disastrous consequences."


Burning wood also has a significant impact on the climate. Scientists predict that the burning of wood fuel by African households will release the equivalent of 6.7 billion tonnes of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere by 2050, resulting in further climate change through clearing of tropical forests.


In terms of health, the burning of fuel wood claims the lives of an estimated 2 million people every year—mostly women and children—who inhale the smoke. Continued widespread indoor use of forest wood charcoal as a household fuel could cause 10 million premature deaths by 2030.


INBAR's Bamboo as Sustainable Biomass Energy initiative is the first to transfer bamboo charcoal technologies from China to sub-Saharan Africa to produce sustainable 'green biofuels' using locally available bamboo resources. Driven by growing concerns about energy, health and food security, and climate change, the initiative is funded by the European Union (EU) and the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC).


Saving Forests, Mitigating Climate Change


It takes seven to ten tons of raw wood to produce one ton of wood charcoal, making wood fuel collection an important driver of deforestation on a continent of nearly one billion people who have few alternative fuel sources.


"Ensuring food security in a changing climate is one of the major challenges of our era. It is well known that the destruction of forests has negative repercussions on livelihoods and sustainable agriculture as it feeds into a cycle of climate change, drought and poverty," said Dr. Patrick Verkooijen, Head Agriculture and Climate Change of the World Bank. "Feeding people in decades to come will require ingenuity and innovation to produce more food on less land in more sustainable ways".


Indeed, scientists believe that deforestation across the Horn of Africa has contributed to pervasive drought in the region. Years of tree-clearing, particularly in hard-hit Somalia, have eliminated fragile forests that stood as the last line of defense against the conversion of sparsely forested dry lands and pastures into useless desert, according to researchers from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).


The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that if business continues as usual, by 2030 biomass energy in sub-Saharan Africa will still account for about three-quarters of total residential energy, underscoring the urgency of coming up with a sustainable alternative biomass to replace wood.

Sub-Saharan Africa has over 2.75 million hectares of bamboo forest, equivalent to roughly 4 percent of the continent's total forest cover.


"Rural communities need access to sustainable approaches that will keep trees in the ground and the environment safe," said Professor Karanja M. Njoroge, Executive Director, Green Belt Movement. "Bamboo grows naturally across Africa's diverse landscapes, but unlike trees, it regrows after harvest and lends itself very well for energy plantations on degraded lands. We should put it to good use to provide clean energy for the continent."


"With further investment and policy reform, community kiln technologies could be up-scaled to reach thousands of communities in Ethiopia," said Melaku Tadesse, National Coordinator for Climate Change Unit at Ethiopia's Ministry of Agriculture. A number of African countries are pressing for development of their own bamboo charcoal industries to provide sustainable, affordable energy for growing populations.


Harnessing the Perfect Biomass Grass


Bamboo is one of the fastest-growing plants on the planet and produces large amounts of biomass, making it an ideal energy source. Tropical bamboos can be harvested after just three years, rather than the two to six decades needed to generate a timber forest.


The entire bamboo plant, including the stem, branch and its rhizome, can be used to produce charcoal, making it highly resource-efficient, with limited wastage. Its high heating value also makes it an efficient fuel.


Charcoal is made through the controlled burning of bamboo in kilns, whether traditional, metal, or brick. The technology is being adapted to produce larger quantities of charcoal to serve a larger number of rural and urban communities as well as to produce bamboo charcoal briquettes that are ideal for cooking because they burn longer and produce less smoke and air pollution than 'natural' charcoal.


China is a global leader in the production and use of bamboo charcoal. The sector is worth an estimated 1 USD billion a year and employs over 60,000 people in more than 1,000 businesses. Chinese partners, including the Nanjing Forestry University and WENZHAO Bamboo Charcoal Co., are helping to adapt equipment like brick kilns, grinders and briquette machines, and hand tools, for bamboo charcoal and briquette production using local materials. Building on this momentum, the INBAR initiative is now transferring China’s advanced bamboo charcoal technologies to sub-Saharan Africa.


In addition to charcoal, bamboo offers many new opportunities for income generation. It can be processed into a vast range of wood products, from floorboards to furniture and from charcoal to edible shoots. The world bamboo export was estimated at 1.6 USD billion in 2009, a decline of about 659 USD million from 2.2 USD billion 2008.