Two column layout (can be reduced to one, could be thought of as three if you count the vertical toolbox on the right) that provides simple presentation with extensive customization; not just for the developer, but for the user. The toolbox showcases the power of stylesheet switching. Users can pick their own color, font type, font size, and even dictate what style of layout they view your web page in. Navigation is kept brief and easily accessible at the top of the page, allowing for a wider area in the content region. A min/max width allows you to control your layout, but remain flexible for low resolution users.
Where does this show up?
...to create more innovative entrepreneurial ventures through proper guidance and mentorship in collaboration with the best entrepreneurial minds in the world.
Afrinnova is about moving African entrepreneurship from opportunism to value innovation and building new ecosystems based on ethical values
Divine Ndhlukula, a Zimbabwean national, is the founder and Managing Director of SECURICO, one of Zimbabwe’s largest security companies. The Harare-based outfit is a market leader in the provision of bespoke guarding services and cutting-edge electronic security solutions.
Ndhlukula has done remarkably well. In less than 15 years of doing business, SECURICO has achieved a number of significant feats: The $13 million (revenues) company now has more than 3,400 employees – 900 of whom are women. The company was also the first security outfit in Zimbabwe to achieve an ISO (International Organization for Standardisation) certification. Last December the company was the winner of the prestigious Legatum Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship...[continue reading]
Erick Njenga, a 21-year-old college senior wrapping up his business IT degree at Nairobi's Strathmore University, has a gap-toothed grin and a scraggly goatee. A mild-mannered son of auditors, he didn't say much as we tucked into a lunch of grilled steak, rice, and fruit juice at an outdoor café amid the din of the city's awful traffic. But his code had done the talking. Last year Njenga and three classmates developed a program that will let thousands of Kenyan health workers use mobile phones to report and track the spread of diseases in real time—and they'd done it for a tiny fraction of what the government had been on the verge of paying for such an application. Their success—and that of others in the nation's fast-growing startup scene—demonstrates the emergence of a tech-savvy generation able to address Kenya's public-health problems in ways that donors, nongovernmental organizations, and multinational companies alone cannot...[continue reading]
Image of Shimba Technologies Jackie Cheruiyot courtesy of David Talbot
More hereWhat is it?
It is a popular strategy board game that originated in West Africa.How does it work?
The board consists of two rows of six houses, one side for each player. The game begins with four seeds in each of the twelve houses, totaling 48. You then decide from which house you will take all four seeds for distributing, one in each house, counter-clockwise. The objective of the game is to win holes (called houses) on the board. To win houses, you must capture as many seeds as you can during each round.
More hereTwenty years after bursting from the grungy street markets of Lagos, the $500 million Nigerian movie business churns out more than a thousand titles a year on average, and trails only Hollywood and Bollywood in terms of revenues. The films are hastily shot and then burned onto video CDs, a cheap alternative to DVDs. They are seldom seen in the developed world, but all over Africa consumers snap up the latest releases from video peddlers for a dollar or two. And so while Afolayan’s name is unknown outside Africa, at home, the actor-director is one of the most famous faces in the exploding entertainment scene known — inevitably — as “Nollywood.”
Credit: Andrea Frazzetta for The New York Times
Maize farmers are often forced by poverty to sell their crop when prices are lowest. But in Rwanda, a group of 60 farmers are among the first to benefit from a system called warrantage which is enabling them to earn double the normal price paid by traders at harvest time. Under the system, farmers deposit their maize in a group storage shed and can receive 60 per cent of the value of their stored crop as a low-interest loan...[continue reading]
Image courtesy of RIU
More hereArthur Zang, a 24 year-old Cameroonian engineer, has invented the Cardiopad, a touch screen medical tablet that enables heart examinations such as the electrocardiogram (ECG) to be performed at remote, rural locations while the results of the test are transferred wirelessly to specialists who can interpret them. The device spares African patients living in remote areas the trouble of having to travel to urban centers to seek medical examinations.
Image courtesy of RN
According to Zang, the Cardiopad is “the first fully touch screen medical tablet made in Cameroon and in Africa.” He believes it is an invention that could save numerous human lives, and says the reliability of the pad device is as high as 97.5%. Zang says he invented the device in order to facilitate the treatment of patients with heart disease across Cameroon and the rest of Africa. So far, several medical tests have been carried out with the Cardiopad which have been validated by the Cameroonian scientific community.
Akinyanju heads one of Nigeria’s fastest growing retail chains valued at about $120 million. With about $2 million (N320 million) in seed funding raised from family and friends, he initially had a franchise deal with Chicken Licken, South Africa but quickly established his own brand Chicken Republic. In 2003, he opened a bakery outlet, Butterfield Bakery (a South African brand), which soon became Nigeria’s largest bakery. Deji also own Reeds Thai Restaurant in Lagos and the St. Elmos Pizza franchise in Nigeria...[continue reading]
More here...“If you’ve got a barely literate medical technician, who only knows how to use a microscope to look for Malaria and fill in a form, you can’t just put a fancy computer in front of him and expect him to use it.”
Image courtesy of eHealth Nigeria
The answer is to use technology that fits the environment — or at least comes close to fitting. Under the aegis of their nonprofit, eHealth Nigeria, Castle and Thompson (founders of eHealth Nigeria ) have built a digital records system meant to eventually serve healthcare facilities across the region, but it doesn’t use the sort of specialized health care software in U.S. or even everyday database software. There’s no Kaiser software. And no Microsoft. The system is based on OpenMRS, an open source health records system designed specifically for use in underdeveloped regions.
First created in 2004, OpenMRS is now used in countries across the globe, including Rwanda, Mozambique, Haiti, India, China, and the Phillipines. As Karlyn and others point out, the platform is hardly reinventing healthcare in the poorer parts of these countries, but it is having some success — eHealth Nigeria being a prime example. “It’s really just a drop in the bucket — but that’s important,” Karlyn tells Wired. “But they’re building confidence in the system, demonstrating how change can happen. That attracts resources, and eventually, that makes a difference.”
OpenMRS began as a research project spanning Indiana University and Eldoret, Kenya’s Moi University. Paul Biondich and Burke Mamlin, two physicians and investigators at Indiana’s Regenstrief Institute, had spent time in Kenya, where a local health institution was using Microsoft Access to help support HIV care, and they saw first hand that the database wouldn’t suit the project at hand. OpenMRS was their response.
A new gallery which has opened in London. Tiwani focuses on contemporary African art in all its forms. It's run in partnership with the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos and its first exhibition - The Tie That Binds Us - showcases the work of five prominent Nigerian artists. It includes not only paint-on-canvas and photo journalism but a range of sculpture and one collection which uses sound and video to portray the colorful chaos of Lagos city.
via Securities.comSasini is one of the leading tea and coffee producers in Kenya. The Company is quoted on the Nairobi Stock Exchange (N.S.E.)Through various wholly owned subsidiary companies Sasini operations cover tea, coffee, dairy livestock, horticulture, tourism and export activities.
Image courtesy of the East African
Luminaa, for the woman who radiates from within. The brand is a New York based label founded in 2008. Lumina’s collection of skirts and dresses has a soft architectural style with timeless beauty, modernity with a bit of an edge. In September 2010, the label made its runway Spring 2011 collection debut at the New Face of Fashion event at the Hiro Ballroom in New York. “The woman who wears Luminaa is intelligent, confident and possesses an understated sexiness,” explains Dorothy Williams, a Liberian-American and the brain behind the label. Williams wants clothes that have a comfortable elegance and accentuates a woman’s body in a refined way.
Watch related video after the jump:The M'hudi Wines project is a very personal journey for our family. The vineyard lies in a valley with deep table Mountain sandstone soils over clay. The valley floor is very hot in summer but is regularly cooled by morning mists and vigorous doses of the Cape Doctor (renowned Cape Town South-Easterly wind) in the afternoons. We use the grapes from our vineyard to make the wines, but to ensure quality we also source grapes from areas best known for the cultivars.
More hereShe started Sweet Sensation at a shed in the backyard of her family home where she set up a small bakery. She then moved to what she calls, “her first shop” which was the security/gate house at her father’s house in Ilupeju. Here she sold solid cakes, ice cream, rice, chicken and some Chinese food. Her young business expanded rapidly and she soon yearned for yet another shop. This led her to found the brand’s second outlet in Victoria Island (Lagos)
The name Kopo Kopo comes from kobboh kobboh, the Krio word for money. We owe our name – and inspiration – to Sierra Leone. After spending the first part of 2010 in Freetown, we resolved to create a world-class platform to enable small and medium businesses to accept mobile payments and build relationships with their customers. Kopo Kopo was incorporated in the United States in August 2010 and opened a branch in Kenya in May 2011 in order to serve the East African Community. Today we serve a variety of businesses, from retail stores to e-commerce sites.
...a hub which will house, foster, and catalyze creative and community-driven projects for social change across Kenya. It is the first of its kind in Africa. PAWA254 derives its name from a combination of “power” in Swahili and 254, Kenya's country code, as a symbol of national strength and unity. The new hub will facilitate the use of visual and graphic arts, independent and citizen journalism, documentary film and photography, and digital and social media as means of civic expression and social action. To do so, the hub facility will bring together established and aspiring photographers, cartoonists, animators, creative designers, video & filmmakers, as well as entrepreneurs and activists, to work, learn, and share in an environment that inspires creativity and innovative efforts to bring about social change.
To support smallscale farmers, REST (Relief Society of Tigray) is working to improve awareness of dairy technology and establish milk marketing and processing cooperatives throughout Tigray. So far, more than 20 milk cooperatives have been established and over 400 members are supplying around 2,500 litres of milk every dayMore here
REST organises farmers into milk processing and marketing cooperatives, and also constructs milk centres. Each centre serves as a collection point, processor and marketing site. On arrival at the centre, the milk is tested to maintain quality, and the quantity of milk received is registered daily against the producer's name in a milk record book. The farmers are then paid monthly for the quantity of milk they have delivered.
REST provided equipment for cheese & butter production
When we returned home last August, my older sister told me about strawberry season in Nigeria – January/winter to you in some parts of the world. I was convinced it was a joke. Till last Friday when I held a pack in hand...More here
...the ones I took receipt of last week – those are grown here, ….. in Nigeria. In the central-northern region of Jos, which is mountainous and temperate and able to grow a range of ‘Western’ fruits and veggies – Cauliflower and Broccoli amongst them.
Image courtesy of Kitchen Butterfly
Through a simple processing technique, Demangam Victorine Luekam converts soya milk into a meat-like product. She then fries the soya meat in oil, which it allows it to be stored for up to a week, and sells cubes of it on sticks to a growing number of customers. Martha Chindong, who interviews Demangam, finds that soya meat is tasty as well as nutritious. It’s particularly good for menopausal women, as it contains natural oestrogen hormone. Eating soya products regularly helps to reduce the hot flushes that are a common symptom of menopause. And as a legume crop, soya also boosts soil fertility...[more]
Soyabean image courtesy of Wikipedia
access:energy’s approach to energy provision is quite different from solar power projects – we build our turbines from scratch at small workshops in Kenya, install them as energy hubs in rural villages and distribute power very locally. This local approach means we can deliver electricity far cheaper than mass-produced solar panels and even, in many cases, grid electricity. It also means that as we grow we create skilled jobs in the places where people need them most...[continue reading]
is engaged in the design, manufacturing supply, and installation/erection and commissioning of electromechanical equipment, plant, systems and turnkey projects and also in electromechanical services and trading activities.
More hereMy Craft London work is...
The Asiko Glamour Girls collection is a set of ceramic storage vessels that have a sophisticated modern appeal to the western market with a strong West African aesthetic. The surface has enamel prints inspired by the Dutch Wax cloths worn by the famous Nigerian actresses who starred in the iconic nineties film called Glamour Girls.
With layered gold lustres and enamel spray paint images inspired by the busy city life of Lagos in Nigeria, the collection is an eccentric refreshing burst of colour and bold forms, that reflects the personalities of the characters played in Glamour Girls. The ceramic vessels serve as a tribute to these famous Nigerian women who are to this day, seen as modern stylish women.
More hereIn the towns and villages of war-ravaged eastern Congo, the lumpy, lava-covered roads belong to the humble chukudu: hand-hewn wooden scooters that men ride and push across the hills, hauling towering loads of charcoal, cabbage, potatoes and other stuff of daily life.
(Miguel Juarez - Miguel Juarez for the Washington Post)
Though the chukudus look pre-industrial, local residents say they date from the 1970s, when Congo's economy and government began to collapse under the rule of then-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and people had to improvise services from schools to heavy transport.
Available in three models -- small, medium and large -- the chukudu is a marvel of practical engineering and endurance. It has become the donkey of eastern Congo -- a beast of burden that hauls vegetables in the good times and fleeing people in the bad. Purely utilitarian, chukudus are rarely painted or personalized. The most common flourishes are mudflaps for their wooden wheels. And unlike the minibuses of Nairobi, chukudus rarely inspire nicknames.
Established in 1952 Glass Blowing Industries products include pharmaceutical containers, optical windows and sandblasted trophies.
...Le2 designs originates from the word gugulethu which is the middle name of the founder, given nkuna (28). lethu (le2) means 'ours' and gugu means 'pride.' given founded le2 designs in 2007...le2 designs specialises in felt making and creates colourful, quirky products such as handbags, hats, scarves and jewelry. given is also involved with artist proof studio, where he facilitates outreach programmes to young artists. he also did a programme in 2007 to train 25 people in felting skills and he manages the monthly zasekhaya craft market in newtown, johannesburg.
Image courtesy of africacreative
PocketMoni is the brand name of eTranzact Mobile Money service and is being proclaimed to be the first truly operational mobile commerce application that is multi-network capable with the ability to interface seamlessly with third party payment schemes.
The service in line with international standards is secured utilizing 3DES encryption technology. In addition a PIN is required for every transaction. PocketMoni customers can securely, conveniently and cost-effectively send money to family and friends.
MAM, specializes in producing luxurious hand embroidered household linens for bed and table. Creator Marie-Amy Mbow, a trained archeologist working from Dakar, Senegal, takes inspiration from the rich African archeological and cultural heritage she shares with her collaborators...[more]
The Arduino is simple, but not too simple. It’s built around the idea that students will be using these to “do” something: get sensor data in, have a bit of code, do something with that. Maybe they didn’t even write the code, they cut and pasted it to get started. It’s hot glue, not precision welding. No one is going to cut a hand off or burn down the studio experimenting. One of the Arduino team members teaches designers and artists — everyday, the platform is being built and improved for step-by-learning, building on lessons and sharing code — these designers and artists are using Macs and tinkering in Processing (Arduino’s older sibling)...The barrier to entry isn’t a monetary one, it’s a philosophical one. This requires boldness and getting out of committee-think. A chip company needs to show off chips — they don’t care about Mac support, or writing tons of software, libraries, and IDEs. Chip companies are (historically) the ones who usually make the platforms. We’ll see some of the big players flood the market with subsidized hardware to beat the $30 price point of the Arduino, but that doesn’t matter if the Arduino support and quality stay high.For those seeking a primer they may want to take a peek at The Open Source Way Creating and nurturing communities of contributors If however you are looking for Arduino tutorials covering a wide array of concepts and techniques go no further than John Boxall's treasure trove of tutorials For more college hackerspace news take a look at the MIT MITERS crew
Why else is it here to stay? The community. How can you get 100,000+ people to jump ship? You can’t. To get close, you’ll need to develop something just like the Arduino, support its shields and accessories, and write a lot of code (something chip companies hate to do.) Great software for multiple systems, lots of libraries, drivers that work, simple, low cost, and open source. And you know what? I think that’s what the Arduino team really wants. They’re techno-hippies — they want to see other platforms with the same ideals — that’s the game they’re actually playing. And I think it’s what we all want, whether it’s called an Arduino or not...[continue reading]
Arduino board
For your micro milling workshop you might want to assemble an MTM Snap: A snap-together Arduino-powered desktop CNC milling machine.
 |
| MTM Snap milling machine |
 |
| Bryan Denton for The New York Times |
Where visions of crafting often conjure up images of glue guns, popsicle sticks, fabric and looms, hacking evokes soldering irons, microprocessors, and software. Truth is, there’s a lot of similarities between hacking and crafting, and even more to be gained from a dialogue between both groups of makers. Both hackers and crafters feel the same need to create things and manipulate materials, and have very similar basic requirements: access to equipment, space to work, and a supportive community within which to grow and share projects and ideas.In relation to this Openwear founders Zoe Romano + Bertram Niessen discuss DIY Craft and Fashion Microproductions with Massimo Menichinelli:
As an avid crafter, when I first visited a hackerspace, I immediately felt inspired to bring my projects there. There were some hints of crafting in the space the first time I set foot there, but it was hugely dominated by hardware and software hacking. Some may have felt alienated by that, but I felt like it was a wonderful opportunity to learn and engage with a medium that I’d never worked with before – and to also bring in the softer side of hacking — and yarn bomb some of those cold-looking surfaces!
Image courtesy of Make magazine
Massimo Menichinelli: The phenomena of Open Hardware, DIY and Makers have reached a remarkable level of development, fame and reputation. Perhaps less famous but equally important is the phenomenon of DIY craft and craft / fashion micro enterprises that are often visible on platforms such as Etsy. What are the differences and similarities between these phenomena and how do they relate to each other?
Image courtesy of Open Wear
Zoe Romano and Bertram Niessen: All these new scenes have in common a desire to empower understanding what they have in their hands, how it was made and improved. This desire blurs the distinction between producers and consumers, not in the sense that everyone will make everything they need, but that everyone more and more often will able to produce or design something and make it available in a flux of exchange out of which everyone could benefit. Both phenomena are related with crucial changes that are undergoing in our social and economical environment. The Peak Oil calls to 0 Km chains of production. The rise of 2.0 social networks, mixed with the spreading of p2p communities, encourages new forms of global/local communities of producers and consumers. New technologies in communication and material production foster distributed manufacturing. The difference is that DIY crafters sometimes have the tendency to perceive themselves more far away from technology because of their handmade pledge. It’s more a problem of cultural background. But as long as they envision the possibilities of new on-demand machines, they realize how craftsmanship could be revolutionized without loosing its soul.
 |
| Image credit: The Urban Farming Guys |
More to come...There's a great story in Design Magazine describing how Kenneth van Rensburg came to create a 3D printing business (Protoform) in South Africa. After seeing the technology by accident during a Jaguar factory tour in the UK, van Rensburg created Protoform in 2008 to "bridge the gap between design and manufacture", initially focusing on boat design. Later, Protoform would reach out to other markets and now produces 3D models for a variety of industries, including medical models and artistic works.
Courtesy of Design Indaba Campaign 2009
The itelite enclosure with integrated 18dBi dual-polarization patch took some modifications to mount the RouterStation, but was very robust and had a solid rubber gasket and grooved interface around the edges to keep water out. The built-in ethernet extension plug was also a nice touch. 19" pigtails for the external antennas exit through an optional port on the itelite enclosure and screw directly into the 2.4Ghz antennas.
