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Indonesia Best for Entrepreneurs

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

A global survey has unearthed hotspots across the global South for start-up businesses and private enterprise. It shows there are now many places in the South where people are actively encouraged to start businesses and engage in innovation and enterprise. The top place in the world for entrepreneurship, according to the survey for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), is Indonesia.

The poll shows that Indonesians perceive their country as a place where it is easy to put ideas into practice. Innovation and creativity are highly valued in Indonesia as well, two important elements of business success. Asia as a whole, with a few exceptions, stood out for valuing these qualities.

India came second in the survey, while China and Nigeria were also perceived by their own people as relatively favourable places for new businesses.

The survey for the BBC’s Extreme World TV series polled more than 24,000 people across 24 countries (http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/bbc2011_entrepreneur/backgrounder.html). Respondents were asked whether innovation was highly valued in their country; whether it was hard for people like them to start a business; whether entrepreneurs were highly valued; and whether people with good ideas could usually put them into practice.

Interestingly, not only were several countries in East Asia and the Pacific doing well, but three sub-Saharan African countries – Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana – ranked above the global average.

The survey found work still needed to be done in Latin America. While Mexico and Peru scored highly, Brazil and Colombia ranked below average.

So, what are the things that make Indonesia so positive for entrepreneurs and private business? And what do they do – or not do – for small business start-ups?

According to Bali International Consulting Group, the Indonesian economy is highly dependent on small and medium-sized enterprises: they make up 99.95 percent of the total number of enterprises, and provide most of the country’s jobs. Authorities have identified a problem with the sector, however: productivity per worker is very low compared to large enterprises. Poor productivity matters because it means people are working very hard for low return and this affects the overall standard of living in the country and its human development.

The Indonesian government has set about boosting productivity in the sector, adopting a ‘clustering’ approach in partnership with non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Like-minded businesses tend to cluster together across the archipelago of islands that makes up the nation. By targeting these places with resources and support, it can use those resources more efficiently. The country has a dedicated ministry for small and medium enterprises (http://www.depkop.go.id) and a wide range of businesses and services targeting them. From dedicated trading and office facilities (http://www.smescoindonesia.com) to an online marketplace to display, trade and sell SME products (http://www.smescotrade.com), extensive resources are applied to give SMEs a boost and a competitive edge in the global marketplace.

From past experience, Indonesia learned it was more effective to use business development services in clusters to promote and develop SMEs, rather than centralised, top-down government models or other approaches.

As Bali International Consulting Group notes, “The government has introduced many models for promoting SMEs, including business incubators, business consulting clinics and technology centers. However, those sponsoring programs have not been productive and could not sustain themselves for a long time. The government then turned to supporting BDS (Business Development Services) providers to serve a certain cluster in a selected area.”

Developed countries like the United States significantly grew their wealth by allowing entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises to flourish. The USA’s highly innovative and globe-straddling high tech and information technology businesses would not have been so successful without entrepreneurs. Think of Bill Gates, one of the founders of Microsoft, or Steve Jobs, one of the pioneers behind the Apple computer brand.

China – the country that has seen the largest lifting of people out of poverty in our time – is awash with entrepreneurs. So successful at providing manufacturing services to foreign companies, China is fast on track to become the wealthiest country in the world. The International Monetary Fund recently issued a report predicting China would be number one within five years.

Entrepreneurs play a key role in any country’s economic strategy. The more they are encouraged to flourish – and build wealth and their businesses – the better a country can do. Large human development gains can come about when entrepreneurs are matched with a fair and transparent tax system, balancing between social and economic needs.

China is the source of one of the most successful aids to small business growth in the global South. Hong Kong-based Alibaba (http://www.alibaba.com) is an online trading and selling marketplace aimed at small businesses and start-ups. Packed with support, advice and inspiration, it makes it possible for people anywhere in the world to get trading and selling.

To help small businesses trade with each other, New Delhi, India-based Go4World Business.com (http://indonesia.go4worldbusiness.com) has for the past 12 years helped exporters and importers to explore new markets and increase their international business in a simple, cost effective manner.

The Internet has not only radically transformed how to trade and sell, it has also opened up many ways for small and medium-sized businesses to raise funds and borrow money. Examples include Zopa (www.zopa.com) – “Where people meet to lend and borrow money”; social lenders like Kiva (www.kiva.org)w, whose mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty; and Betterplace (www.betterplace.org), an online marketplace for projects to raise funds. It is free to use, and it passes on 100 percent of the money raised on the platform to the projects. For those with a creative business idea, Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com) is a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, and explorers.

Published: June 2011

Resources

1) Small business guide: An online resource packed with advice and resources on starting a small business. Website: http://www.smallbusiness.co.uk/

2) The red dot logo stands for belonging to the best in design and business. The red dot is an internationally recognized quality label for excellent design that is aimed at all those who would like to improve their business activities with the help of design. Website: http://www.red-dot.de

3) Dutch Designers in Development: The Dutch NGO works with producers to develop skills and adapt producers’ products to present and future demands in Europe. By following this approach, Southern producers can reduce the risk of making products nobody wants, or that lack originality in the marketplace and thus won’t sell. Website: http://www.ddid.nl/english/index.html

4) SME toolkits abound: Here are two from Africa: SME Toolkit Kenya Website: http://kenya.smetoolkit.org/kenya/en and SME Toolkit South Africa: Website: http://southafrica.smetoolkit.org/sa/en

5) African Alliance for Capital Expansion: A management consultancy focused on private sector development and agribusiness in West Africa. Website: http://www.africanace.com/v3

6) World Business Fair: The World Business Fair is an international trade platform for global entrepreneurs and professionals. Website: http://www.worldbusinessfair.com

7) Small businesses looking to develop their brand can find plenty of free advice and resources here. Website: www.brandingstrategyinsider.com

8) Brandchannel: The world’s only online exchange about branding, packed with resources, debates and contacts to help businesses intelligently build their brand. Website: www.brandchannel.com

9) ZanaAfrica (ZanaA) is a non-profit whose mission is to craft tools from within Africa to slay the giants of poverty. The tools are in the nexus of health, education, and environment with a particular focus on gender and technology. These tools address root causes of poverty, and are primarily market-based solutions with a national and replicable scope to provide leveraged, lasting solutions with significant multiplier effects. Website: http://www.zanaa.org/

10) Small Business in Indonesia by Peter Van Diermen. Explores how critical families are to business success in Indonesia. Website: http://books.google.com/books/about/Small_business_in_Indonesia.html?id=WSu1AAAAIAAJ

11) SME Toolkit Indonesia: The SME Toolkit Indonesia offers a wide range of how-to articles, business forms, free business software, online training, self-assessment exercises, quizzes, and resources to help entrepreneurs, business owners, and managers in emerging markets and developing countries start, finance, formalize, and grow their businesses. Website: http://indonesia.smetoolkit.org/indonesia/en

12) The 3rd Indonesia International Conference on Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Small Business 2011: From July 25 to 28, is aimed at challenging researchers, Indonesians in particular, to study and create local knowledge on Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Small Business. Website: http://www.ciel-sbm-itb.com/iicies2011

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2023

Categories
Archive Development Challenges, South-South Solutions Newsletters

Havana’s Restaurant Boom Augers in New Age of Entrepreneurs

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

Cuba, the Caribbean island nation known for its 1959 revolution and its tourism industry, is undergoing a shift in its economic strategy. The country has had heavy state control of its industries and business activities since the country adopted the official policy of state socialism and joined the Communist economic sphere headed by the Soviet Union.

When the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, Cuba was pitched into an economic crisis as it lost access to preferential trade subsidies. This period is known as the ‘Special Period’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Period) and was marked by a severe reduction in access to fuel as supplies and subsidies from the Soviet Union disappeared. Some of the iconic images of the time include people abandoning their cars and turning to bicycles to get around, or using make-shift truck-buses packed with workers. Exports collapsed and slashed the size of the economy by a third.

Fast-forward to today, and tourism is booming. A record 2.7 million tourists went to Cuba in 2011, earning the country US $2.3 billion. And it is catering to this tourism market that probably offers the best near-term opportunities. With wages still just 50 per cent of what they were in 1989 many are taking up this new opportunity to become entrepreneurs.

To become an entrepreneur, Cubans need to apply for a pink identification card with their name and photo and the words “Autorizacion Para Ejercer el Trabajo por Cuenta Propria.” This gives authority “to work for your own account.” With the card, a person can start a business, hire staff and pay them what they like.

Cuba’s economy has been through many phases since the revolution, swinging between loosening up the ability of people to establish private businesses – and pulling back, restricting private enterprise. But since 2008, there has been a significant shift to encouraging greater private enterprise, entrepreneurship and the ownership of private property – once banned – to stimulate the economy.

“This is the most important thing to happen in Cuba since the revolution in 1959,” Juan Triana, senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of the Cuban Economy at Havana University, told The Sunday Times Magazine.

One visible sign of this change is the flourishing of what is called locally ‘paladar’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paladar), or privately run restaurants.

Paladares are usually located in a person’s home and staffed by family members. Their customers are a mix of tourists, expatriates living in Cuba, and Cubans with a high enough income to be able to afford restaurant meals.

The cost of a meal in these restaurants can run from US $40 to US $60 for two people.

Stocking the kitchen is not easy. Cuba experiences food shortages and there is still rationing for many. Basics like eggs can be hard to find. As for exotic, imported ingredients, many chefs rely on visitors to stock their larders.

Cuba will have to re-build its food sector to make this a lasting improvement.

The agriculture sector has declined and, where Cuba once provided a third of the world’s sugar harvest, the country now has to import half of its food supply. Measures are in the works to change this, with smallholder farmers now able to own 165 acres of land and sell their produce to private customers and hotels.

One restaurant owner, Héctor Higuera Martinez, told The New York Times:“You dream up a recipe that you’d like to make but then you can’t find the ingredients.

“One day you go out to get salt and there’s no salt. And I mean no salt,Anywhere.”

Martinez trained with a well-known Cuban chef and did a stint in Paris before returning to Havana. He has turned a 19th-century mansion into the restaurant Le Chansonnier (http://www.cubajunky. com/havana/restaurant_le_chansonnier.html) and decorated the walls with the work of local artists.

Martinez sees the paladares as a turning point in changing Cuba’s reputation for having boring food. “I believe we can play an important role in revolutionizing Cuban cuisine.”

Cuba is making the difficult shift from having an economy where 80 per cent of activity is in the state sector, to a mixed model balanced between private and public ownership.

Havana’s historic district offers tourists renovated colonial architecture mixed with shops, restaurants and bars. As a tourist strolls from the renovated district, they quickly come across the rest of Havana, which has beautiful buildings from the colonial period, 1950s American-influenced architecture with its fading retro signage, and more utilitarian Soviet-era architecture.

While charming and home to most of the city’s residents, much of it is rundown and crowded and in need of investment and renovation.

But things are changing fast. Oyaki Curbelo and Cedric Fernando use spices brought in by visitors for Bollywood, their restaurant in the Nuevo Vedado area (http://cubantripadvisor.com/destinations/havana-cityoutskirts/bollywood-paladar/). It has a small menu of Indian and Sri Lankan dishes, including shrimp curry with ginger and tamarind. The restaurant sources its curry leaves from a tree located in the Sri Lankan Embassy.

Another restaurant, Atelier (http://www.cubaabsolutely.com/articles/travel/article_travel.php?landa=70),located in a mansion in the Vedado neighbourhood, serves European Continental food and has a roof terrace letting diners enjoy the a view of the Havana skyline.

The restaurant Doña Eutimia (https://www.facebook.com/paladardona.eutimia) serves up Cuban favourites off the Cathedral Square. Specialties include a dish made of shredded beef with garlic, tomato, oregano and bay leaves.

At Vistamer (http://www.stay.com/havana/restaurant/4249/paladar-vistamar/),diners can enjoy garlic-laden lobster tails and lemon meringue pie. At the paladar Café Laurent (http://www.cubaabsolutely.com/articles/travel/article_travel.php?landa=71), the menu includes meatballs with sesame seeds and mustard in red-wine and tarragon sauce, according to The New York Times.

Habana Chef in the Vedado district (http://cubantripadvisor.com/destinations/havana-city-outskirts/habana-chefpaladar/) was started by Joel Begue and chef Ivan Rodriguez. Begue gained his experience in the state restaurant sector and took the opportunity to get a licence when the government offered them in 2011. He borrowed US $25,000 to start the restaurant and has been able to pay back half so far. His current success is prompting him to look into opening a second restaurant in the capital.

An enthusiastic Andrew Macdonald, who is looking for investment opportunities for a half a billion dollar fund held by the Escencia Anglo-Cuban firm, told The Sunday Times magazine, “Cuba is the top emerging tourism market in the Caribbean by a mile, and it’s in the top five emerging markets globally.”

Published: May 2012

Resources

1) Advice on starting a restaurant and links to additional resources. Website: runarestaurant.co.uk

2) How to start a restaurant: From Entrepreneur magazine, a guide to the planning required to start a successful restaurant. Website: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/73384

3) AlaMesa: A directory of restaurants in Cuba. Website: alamesacuba.com

4) Southern Innovator: Youth and Entrepreneurship Issue: The new global magazine is launching its second issue and is packed with innovative entrepreneurs and youth using business to tackle poverty. Website: http://www.scribd.com/doc/86451057/Southern-Innovator-Magazine-Issue-2

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/10/brazilian-restaurant-serves-amazonian-treats/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/19/cooking-up-a-recipe-to-end-poverty/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/24/latin-american-food-renaissance-excites-diners/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/11/woman-restaurant-entrepreneur-embraces-brand-driven-growth/

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-3/

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2023

Categories
Archive Development Challenges, South-South Solutions Newsletters Southern Innovator magazine

Berber Hip Hop Helps Re-ignite Culture and Economy

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

Music is being used to revive the ancient language of the original North African desert dwellers, the Berbers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berber_people). And in the process, it is spawning a whole new generation of entrepreneurs and generating income. 

The Berbers are North Africa’s indigenous people, primarily living in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia, but their language and culture – called Amazigh – were replaced as the lingua franca of the region after the Arab conquest in the 7th century. But all these years later, the language is enjoying resurgence under Morocco’s king, Mohammed VI, who is helping to promote the language through television programming and a new law making teaching of the language compulsory in schools by 2010.

Amazigh people – the name means “free humans” or “free men” – total more than 50 million. Their group languages, called Tamazight, are spoken by several million people across North Africa, with the largest number in Morocco.

For young Moroccans, promoting the language is more interesting when hip hop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_music) is thrown into the mix. 

Where once Berber culture was shunned in Morocco and the language banned in schools, the revival of the Tamazight language has led to a flourishing of summer arts festivals, thriving Tamazight newspapers _ and Tamazight hip hop.

One hip-hop outfit, Rap2Bled from the Moroccan city of Agadir, stick to social issues, singing about unemployment, drug addiction and the emancipation of women.

“My mother and grandfather don’t know any Arabic…Before they couldn’t watch television, read a newspaper. They hadn’t got a clue what was going on in the world. They didn’t know anything,” Rap2Bled singer Aziz, who goes by the street name Fatman, told to Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

“But now there is a TV channel in our local dialect and a newspaper. But our aim is to put the language on the map by fusing it with hip hop. More than 60 per cent of young Moroccans only listen to rap and western music. So we thought why not fuse Berber with that and make it really accessible?”

Just 10 years ago, rap and hip hop were virtually unknown in Morocco, with only a small group of hip hop aficionados listening to big American stars like Dr Dre, Tupac Shakur and Notorious BIG.

But today hip hop culture and way of life (of which rap and hip hop music are a part) have become a powerful force in Moroccan culture. Moroccan rap focuses on local issues like unemployment and injustice and is ubiquitous on radio and TV.

The Casa Crew, from Casablanca, has become so successful since their beginnings in 2003 that their fan base stretches to Spain and Algeria.

“First of all, to designate rap simply as mere ‘music’ deprives it of its real impact,” Caprice from the Casa Crew (http://casa-crew-00.skyrock.com/), told the Arab Media News, Menassat. 

“Rap is a life style, and mainly a culture of convictions. The fact that rap is spreading in countries like Morocco is an excellent sign. On the one hand, it’s proof that the youth are starting to react, to think they have the right to express themselves in any way they see fit, without anyone judging them or denying them of that right. On the other hand, the development of rap means that the space for artistic freedom is growing particularly when considering that a majority of Arab rappers are dealing with subjects that we were forbidden to speak about a few years ago.”

The Amazigh revival industry centres around large music festivals. Timitar Festival in Agadir (http://www.moroccofestivals.co.uk/timitar.html) gets crowds surpassing 500,000, with more than 40 artists. Morocco’s biggest festival helps Amazigh artists meet world musicians and learn how to reach music fans outside of Morocco.

Another pioneer of Morocco’s music industry is Mohamed ‘Momo’ Merhari, a young music entrepreneur and winner of the British Council’s International Young Music Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2008 (http://www.creativeconomy.org.uk/).

Momo is a music consultant and co-founder of the “Boulevard des Jeunes Musiciens” (http://www.boulevard.ma/), the largest contemporary music festival in North Africa, featuring 50 bands over four days, and reaching a live audience of 130,000 people. The annual event showcases new talent from the worlds of hip hop, rock and jazz fusion from all over the region.

In January, Morocco’s culture minister Touriya Jabrane promised to introduce a range of measures to financially support Moroccan musicians, composers and the industry as whole.

Published: March 2009

Resources

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/02/african-afro-beats-leads-new-music-wave-to-europe/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/17/cashing-in-on-music-in-brazil/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/12/18/disabled-congolese-musicians-become-world-hit/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/11/09/mauritanian-music-shop-shares-songs-and-friendship/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/12/17/mongolias-musical-entrepreneurs-led-way-out-of-crisis-2018/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2023/02/07/mongolian-rock-and-pop-book-mongolia-sings-its-own-song/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/11/09/ring-tones-and-mobile-phone-downloads-are-generating-income-for-local-musicians-in-africa/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/11/09/taxis-promote-african-music-beats/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/11/24/too-black/

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2023

Categories
Archive Development Challenges, South-South Solutions Newsletters Southern Innovator magazine

Kenyan Mobile Phone Innovations

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

A couple of enterprising Kenyan engineering students are showing how mobile phones are an inventor’s dream. Their two inventions – one a way to re-charge phones while bicycling, the other an aid for catching fish – show the potential for adapting this technology to the needs of the poor.

The rapid spread of mobile phones across the South is giving rise to a flurry of invention and experimentation. While many of the new mobile phone-users do not have much money, they are often driven by poverty to invent solutions – and in so doing prove the phones offer many ways to generate income.

According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Africa is the world’s fastest-growing mobile phone market, and the number of subscribers surpassed 300 million in 2008. The number of mobile phone users in the world passed 4 billion in 2008, and the fastest growth was in the South (ITU). The trend towards increasing development of inexpensive handsets means more phones will be reaching even more poor people in the future.

Kenya has seen blistering growth in mobile phone ownership: from just 200,000 users in 2000, there are now more than 17.5 million people with mobile phones out of a population of 38.5 million

As powerful as mobile phones are, they need electricity to keep working. The struggle to find a steady supply of electricity vexes many in the South, so finding cheap or free ways to recharge the phones represents a huge market opportunity.

While mobile phone recharging has become a business in its own right across the South, it is costly as well as time-consuming. Some people spend hours just getting to recharging stations.

To tackle this chronic problem, Engineering students Pascal Katana and Jeremiah Murimi of the Department of Electrical and Information Engineering at the University of Nairobi, Kenya (http://uonbi.ac.ke/departments/index.php?dept_code=HE&fac_code=32) have invented a device called the “smart charger.” It is powered by the dynamo that is standard issue with most bicycles sold in Kenya. Dynamos on the bicycle’s back wheel are little electricity generators that use pedal power to illuminate the bike’s lights.

It takes an hour to charge the mobile phone by peddling the bicycle: around the same time it takes to charge a phone using an electricity plug. A one-time charge for somebody can cost up to US $2 at a recharging service. But the smart charger sells for 350 Kenyan shillings (US $4.50) – around the cost of two charges.

“We both come from villages and we know the problems,” Murimi told the BBC.

“The device is so small you can put it in your pocket with your phone while you are on your bike.”

The smart charger has been assembled from bits and pieces the duo found: “We took most of (the) items from a junk yard,” Katana said. “Using bits from spoilt radios and spoilt televisions.”

To test the experimental device, workers at the university campus were recruited to have a go.

“I use a bicycle especially when I’m at home in the rural areas, where we travel a lot,” said campus security guard David Nyangoro. “It’s very expensive nowadays charging a phone. With the new charger I hope it will be more economical, as once you have bought it, things will be easier for you and no more expenses.”

Kenya’s National Council for Science and Technology (http://www.ncst.go.ke/) has now backed the project and the students are exploring ways to mass-produce the smart charger.

Another invention by Katana has adapted a mobile phone to improve fishermen’s success, according to Afrigadget (www.afrigadget.com). It amplifies the sounds made by fish as they feed. As the sound is broadcast outwards from the feeding, other fish are attracted to the same place, believing there is more food. A GPRS/GSM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Packet_Radio_Service) mechanism in the fishing net is triggered when there is enough fish in the net, and an SMS text message is sent to the fisherman letting him know it is time to haul in the net.

It looks like Pascal Katana can re-charge your phone and fill your plate!

Published: August 2009

Resources

1) Entrepreneurs can track the growth of the mobile phones market here. Website: http://www.wirelessintelligence.com

2) SMS Bootcamp: The “SMS Boot Camp” at the University of Nairobi, is a project-based course enabling teams of students to launch and market their own SMS services to the millions of mobile phone users in Kenya. A small amount of seed funding will be available to the best teams interested in turning their project into a commercial venture. Website: http://eprom.mit.edu/entrepreneurship.html

3) Mobile Active.org: MobileActive.org is a community of people and organizations using mobile phones for social impact. They are committed to increasing the effectiveness of NGOs around the world who recognize that the over 4 billion mobile phones provide unprecedented opportunities for organizing, communications, and service and information delivery. Website: www.mobileactive.org

4) Textually.org: is the entry point of three weblogs devoted to cell phones and mobile content, focusing on text messaging and cell phone usage around the world, tracking the latest news and social impact of these new technologies. Website: http://www.textually.org/

5) Ushahidi: is a website that was developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. The new Ushahidi Engine is being created to use the lessons learned from Kenya to create a platform that allows anyone around the world to set up their own way to gather reports by mobile phone, email and the web – and map them. It is being built so that it can grow with the changing environment of the web, and to work with other websites and online tools. Website: http://blog.ushahidi.com/

6) Google Android: Get inventing! This software enables anyone to start making applications for mobile phones. And it offers a platform for developers to then sell the applications to others. Website: www.android.com/

7) Afrigadget: is a website dedicated to showcasing African ingenuity. A team of bloggers and readers contribute their pictures, videos and stories from around the continent. Website: http://www.afrigadget.com

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

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