Jackie’s been wandering around SS Africa for nearly two years, working with different organizations. This has given her some insight into what is working and what isn’t in world of appropriate tech development (anyone with a better idea for this stale term?).
This week she posted a series on organizations that are doing a good job of getting products out there.
Rent-to-Own, a company renting-to-won agricultural tools to entrepreneurs in Zambia.
Hestian Innovation, which runs a decentralised model of fuel efficient stove production and distribution.
Kilimo Salama, an insurance scheme for Western Kenyan farmers.
Global Cycle Solutions, which produces and sells bicycle-mounted agroprocessing equipment.
Zambikes, a Zambian company selling bicycles in Zambia.
She also offers her checklist for assessing initiative success.
I think this is cool. I’m pretty quick slam tech initiatives I consider useless (or worse). Not being as close to the field/markets as I used to be, I don’t get to see as many cool solutions. It’s nice to hear Jackie’s examples. Have any more? Post them in the comments. But consider: I’m after cool solutions for real people in Africa, not just sexy designs that work in a lab somewhere in the US.
Inspiring stuff. Rock on low tech designers.
B
![[Post to Twitter]](http://www.cashewman.com/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter-micro3.png){kind=icon}
![[Post to Delicious]](http://www.cashewman.com/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-delicious-micro3.png){kind=icon}
![[Post to Digg]](http://www.cashewman.com/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-digg-micro3.png){kind=icon}
![[Post to StumbleUpon]](http://www.cashewman.com/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-su-micro3.png){kind=icon}
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
You asked:
Anyone with a better idea for this stale term? –>appropriate tech development
I’m attempting:
* feasible practical ideas
* viable scientific solutions
Did I win? Did I win?
Right. Nuff with the silliness. One of the reasons I enjoy your blog is because every so often you talk about your friends working on simple, yet critical-for-progress projects like the ones listed here. In the mainstream news, we read about the galloping economies of the BRIC and BASIC nations, or of Africa, the emerging economic continent. Almost of all of it is based on the needs of those who already are comfortably off. Rarely, almost never even, does all the work you often talk about in your posts make the mainstream news. There’s loads of similiar good work going on, I know, and it’s nice to get those stories straight from the horses’ mouths, so to speak. As an aside, yes, I, too, get most of my news from online publications, but I make it point to fit in a newspaper session every chance I get because everything about the exercise is pure indulgence.
I am especially heartened by Zambikes because bikes are something so routine in our lives, we take them for granted. The other ventures mentioned are no less commendable, but because they typically aim to tackle critical issues like a steady food supply or safe drinking water, they top the list of Things We Gotta Do Pronto. Bicycles are a less urgent need, yet look at how Zambikes has diversified. They started off simple i.e. trying to improve means of moving around. This, in a country where the nomadic way of life was, well, a way of life until fairly recently. So the local inhabitants are accustomed to the hardships involved. But throw in something like a bike to get around quicker and boom! Look what that spawned over time - bikes to move goods around, thereby getting the economy going; trailers for a bigger-than-they-ever-imagined production & distribution network, and ambulances to reduce those horrid mortality rate digits.
Like you said, “Inspiring stuff. Rock on low tech designers!”
[Reply]