David South Consulting

Tag: Goal 9

  • Asian Factories Starting to go Green

    Asian Factories Starting to go Green

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    Media headlines have recently highlighted the growing air pollution crisis in Asia’s expanding cities. This is caused by a mix of factors – the growing number of vehicles, coal-powered factories, people burning dirty fuels to heat their homes, and poor enforcement of standards – and has severe consequences for human health. If it’s not tackled, more and more countries will see large rises in respiratory problems, cancers and early deaths from pollution-caused illnesses (http://www.nrdc.org/air/).

    The World Health Organization (WHO) says air pollution is the world’s largest environmental health risk, killing 7 million people every year. Asia has the largest number of air pollution deaths in the world, with 3.3 million deaths linked to indoor air pollution and 2.6 million deaths related to outdoor air pollution (Clean Air Asia).

    While most of the Asian countries where this is a problem are also aggressively growing their economies in order to get richer and raise living standards, there is a rising awareness of the need to balance a modern, industrial economy with human health and the environment.

    One solution is to adopt green and sustainable building standards when constructing new factories. This is more than just a public relations exercise: the energy savings possible from building smart pay off in the long run. And green factories not only pollute less, they save lives and the environment.

    Asia plays a critical role in producing the world’s consumer products, from the small and simple to the highly complex components used in 21st-century computing technologies.

    Intel (intel.com), the manufacturer of electronic devices and the computer chips that go inside them, is trying to lead the way. It has built a US $1 billion manufacturing plant 16 kilometers outside Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and it is designed to exceed Vietnamese environmental and sustainability guidelines and laws.

    Opened in 2010, it boasts the country’s largest solar power system. It is also currently working on a water reclamation system to reduce water consumption at the plant by 68 per cent, according to The New York Times. It is hoping to receive certification from the US Green Building Council (usgbc.org).

    It is all part of a wider trend that is starting to reverse the damaging, short-termist approach of the past. More and more Western multinationals and their Asian suppliers are building environmentally sound factories in the developing world.

    According to the US Green Building Council, around 300 manufacturing facilities in Asia are either certified or are awaiting Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. The LEED certification recognizes the building has met certain standards in becoming a ‘green’ building.

    Going green is more and more part of corporate policy for companies that want to avoid the bad publicity of disasters such as the garment factory collapse that killed 1,135 people in Bangladesh in April 2013.

    But it is not just driven by a desire to avoid bad publicity: large corporations that build factories in the global South are also realizing there are big financial savings to be made.

    Intel has been able to reduce its global energy costs by US $111 million since 2008. It did this by investing US $59 million in 1,500 projects to boost sustainability across its facilities worldwide. The projects have reduced carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to the amount produced by 126,000 American households per year.

    Intel’s solar array in Vietnam, which cost US $1.1 million, offsets the equivalent of 500 pollution-belching motorbikes every day.

    How effective are LEED-certified buildings? The New York Times reported that a 2011 survey compared a typical shoe factory with a LEED factory run by the American sport shoe maker Nike. It found the LEED factory used 18 per cent less electricity and fuel and 53 per cent less water.

    And this trend is creating a new economy unto itself. As an example, a new marketplace for industrial efficiency upgrading is developing in India. Power outages are frequent in India, so finding a way to save electricity and alternatives to dependence on the national power grid is attractive to any economic enterprise.

    Prashant Kapoor, principal industry specialist for green buildings at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), believes demand for upgrades is strong enough that various companies can specialize in this field and profit from it.

    And things are also happening in the notoriously smog-choked cities of China. By the end of 2012, China had certified eight factories and 742 buildings as LEED, according to the China buildings programme at the Energy Foundation (ef.org) in San Francisco.

    Damien Duhamel of Solidiance (solidiance.com), a firm that advises businesses on how to grow in Asia, believes avoiding risk caused by environmental accidents or scandals is heightened by the growing presence of social media, which amplifies negative publicity.

    “The next battle will be here” for higher corporate environmental standards, Duhamel believes. “This is why some smart companies – Intel, for example – took the steps of being proactive.”

    Published: April 2014

    Resources

    1) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED): LEED, or Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, is a green building certification program that recognizes best-in-class building strategies and practices. Website: http://www.usgbc.org/leed

    2) US Green Building Council (USGBC): Its mission is to transform the way buildings and communities are designed, built and operated, enabling an environmentally and socially responsible, healthy, and prosperous environment that improves the quality of life. Website: http://www.usgbc.org/

    3) Dwell: Dwell magazine is focused on demonstrating that modern design can be both functional and comfortable. Website: dwell.com

    4) Inhabitat: Design for a Better World: Inhabitat.com is a weblog devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future. Website: inhabitat.com

    5) Solidiance: Singapore-based consulting firm specializing in Asia’s green-building sector. Website: solidiance.com

    6) Clean Air Asia: Clean Air Asia was established in 2001 as the premier air quality network for Asia by the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and USAID. Its mission is to promote better air quality and livable cities by translating knowledge to policies and actions that reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from transport, energy and other sectors. Website: cleanairinitiative.org

    7) Southern Innovator Issue 4: Cities and Urbanization: This issue is packed with ideas on to how make cities and urban environments greener and reduce air pollution. Website: http://www.scribd.com/doc/133622315/Southern-Innovator-Magazine-Issue-4-Cities-and-Urbanization and here: http://tinyurl.com/oc2mqgm

    8) Better Air Quality Conference 2014 and 8th Regional Environmentally Sustainable Transport Forum in Asia:  From 19 to 21 November 2014 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, BAQ is the leading event on air quality in Asia, covering the key sectors of transport, energy, industry and climate change, with a particular emphasis on government policies and measures. Website: http://cleanairinitiative.org/portal/node/12274

    9) Tianjin Eco-city: The Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city’s vision is to be a thriving city which is socially harmonious, environmentally-friendly and resource-efficient. Website: tianjinecocity.gov.sg

    10) Songdo: Songdo International Business District (IBD) officially opened on August 7, 2009 as a designated Free Economic Zone and the first new sustainable city in the world designed to be an international business district. Website: songdo.com

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/09/27/caribbean-island-st-kitts-goes-green-for-tourism/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/01/25/creating-green-fashion-in-china/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/02/01/ethiopia-and-djibouti-join-push-to-tap-geothermal-sources-for-green-energy/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2023/02/03/environmental-public-awareness-handbook-case-studies-and-lessons-learned-in-mongolia/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/08/29/indian-business-model-makes-green-energy-affordable/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/11/innovation-cairos-green-technology-pioneers/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/10/22/innovations-in-green-economy-top-three-agenda/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/08/07/mongolian-green-book/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/04/14/prisons-with-green-solutions/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/02/04/us-450-million-pledged-for-green-economy-investments-at-kenyan-gssd-expo/

    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 2022

  • India 2.0: Can the Country Make the Move to the Next Level?

    India 2.0: Can the Country Make the Move to the Next Level?

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    With the global economic crisis threatening to cause turmoil in the emerging markets of the global South, it is becoming clear that what worked for the past two decades may not work for the next two.

    For India, the legacy issues of poverty still need to be addressed, and the country’s impressive information technology (IT) industry – which has driven so much of India’s growth – will face stiff competition from other countries in the global South. Some argue that if the IT industry hopes to keep growing and contributing to India’s wealth, things will need to change.

    Unlike China, where heavy investment in infrastructure and a strong link between government and the private sector has driven the impressive manufacturing boom in the country, in India the government has de-regulated and taken a back seat, leaving the private sector and entrepreneurs to drive the change and do the innovation.

    Many believe various areas need urgent attention if India is to continue to enjoy good growth rates in the coming years. Areas in need of attention include infrastructure, healthcare and education (thesmartceo.in), in particular the knowledge to work in the information technology industry of the 21st century.

    One of the founders of Indian outsourcing success Infosys (infosys.com), executive co-chairman Senapathy Gopalakrishnan, told Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, “So many people’s lives have been changed by IT in India.

    “People from the middle class and lower middle class have become global employees and have the opportunity to work with some of the best companies in the world. But the challenge for India is that this industry can only create so many jobs. IT is not going to solve the unemployment problem in India.”

    But the coming next wave of change in information technology is an opportunity to be seized to reduce unemployment if enough people are educated to handle it.

    According to Gopalakrishnan: “I strongly believe, and it’s backed up by data, that there is a shortage of computer professionals everywhere in the world, including India. The application of computers is growing dramatically and will continue to grow dramatically over the next 20 to 30 years. We have to train and create the workforce necessary to grow this industry.”

    Various media stories have called this next phase India 2.0. If India 1.0 was the highly successful information technology outsourcing industry developed in the late 1980s, through the 1990s and 2000s, then India 2.0 is the next wave of IT innovation being driven by Big Data, automation, robotics, smart technologies and the so-called “Internet of things.”

    Big Data is defined as the large amounts of digital data continually generated by the global population. The speed and frequency with which data is produced and collected – by an increasing number of sources – is responsible for today’s data deluge (UN Global Pulse). It is estimated that available digital data will increase by 40 per cent every year. Just think of all those mobile phones people have, constantly gathering data.

    Processing this data and finding innovative ways to use it will create many of the new IT jobs of the future.

    “We are living in a world which is boundary-less when it comes to information, and where there is nowhere to hide,” continues Gopalakrishnan, “If you have a cellphone, somebody can find out exactly where you are. Through social networks you’re sharing everything about yourself. You are leaving trails every single moment of your life. Theoretically, in the future you’ll only have to walk through the door at Infosys and we’ll know who you are and everything about you.”

    Unlike in the late 1980s, when India was the pioneer in IT outsourcing for large multinational companies and governments, competition is fierce across the global South. The mobile-phone revolution and the spread of the Internet have exponentially increased the number of well-educated people in the global South who could potentially work in IT. China, the Philippines, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana are just some of the countries heavily involved in this area.

    If India fails to meet the India 2.0 challenge, it risks seeing its successful companies and entrepreneurs leaving to work their magic elsewhere in Asia and the new frontiers of Africa, just as many of its best and brightest of the recent past became pioneers and innovators in California’s Silicon Valley.

    India’s IT sector contributed 1.2 per cent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 1998; by 2012, this was 7.5 per cent (Telegraph). The IT industry employs 2.5 million people in India, and a further 6.5 million people indirectly. IT makes up 20 per cent of India’s exports and, according to the National Association of Software and Services Companies (nasscom.in), the industry has revenue of US $100 billion.

    India is now the IT and outsourcing hub for more than 120 of the Fortune 500 companies in the United States.

    Out of India’s 3.5 million graduates every year, 500,000 are in engineering – a large pool of educated potential IT workers. India produces the world’s third largest group of engineers and scientists, and the second largest group of doctors.

    IT has become a route that catapults bright Indian youth into 21st-century businesses and science parks and to the corporations of the world.

    One visible example of the prosperity brought by IT services in India is the booming technology sector based in the city of Bangalore (also called Bengaluru) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangalore).

    Reflective of the contradictions of India, Bangalore has 10 per cent of its workforce now working in IT, but also 20 per cent of its population living in urban slums.

    The nearby Electronics City (elcia.in) is considered “India’s own silicon valley and home to some of the best known global companies.”

    To date, aspects of India 2.0 are already taking shape.

    One company is called Crayon Data (crayondata.com). It uses Big Data and analytics to help companies better understand their customers and increase sales and deliver more personal choices.
    Edubridge (http://acumen.org/investment/edubridge/) is helping to bridge the gap for rural youth with varied education backgrounds and long-term jobs. Edubridge trains youth for the real needs of employers to increase the chances they will get a job. This includes jobs in the IT business process outsourcing sector and banking and financial services.

    Infosys is working on innovations for the so-called “Internet of things,” in which smart technologies connect everyday items to the grid and allow for intelligent management of resources and energy use. Infosys is developing sophisticated software using something called semantic analytics – which analyses web content (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_analytics) – to sort through social media and the Internet to track customer responses to products.

    Elsewhere, former Infosys Chief Executive Nanden Nilekani is involved in a Big Data innovation to address the problem of social and economic exclusion of India’s poor. Called Aadhaar (http://uidai.gov.in/), the government-run scheme is gathering biometric data on every Indian to build the world’s largest biometric database. After being enrolled and having fingerprints and iris scans taken, each individual is given a 12-digit identification number. So far 340 million people have been registered with the scheme, and it is hoped 600 million will be registered by the end of 2014.

    The idea is to use a combination of access to mobile phones and these unique ID numbers to widen access to all sorts of products and services to poor Indians, including bank accounts for the millions who do not have one. Many people, lacking any identity or official acknowledgment they exist, were prevented from engaging with the formal economy and formal institutions. Being able to save money is a crucial first step for getting out of poverty and it is hoped information technology will play an important role in achieving this.

    Published: March 2014

    Resources

    1) India 2.0 by Mick Brown. Website: http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/india2.0/part-one#top

    2) Electronic City Bangalore: Regional information portal for Electronic City, an industrial technology hub located in Bangalore South, India. This portal is becoming the most favourite haunt of ECitizens living and/or working in Electronic City. Website: http://www.electronic-city.in/

    3) Electronics City Industries Association: Welcome to the Electronics City, India’s own silicon valley and home to some of the best known global companies. Located in Bangalore, the Electronics City was conceived way back in the mid-1970?s as an Industrial Estate exclusively for Electronics Industries. Today the industrial estate boasts is an oasis of large, medium and small industries spanning software services, hardware; high end telecommunications; manufacture of indigenous components; electronic musical instruments, just  to name a few. Website: elcia.in

    4) Godrej E-City: Situated in Electronic city and connected through NICE road and the elevated expressway, Godrej E-City brings your workplace and other major conveniences within your immediate reach. Your travel times become shorter and hassle-free. You have more time for your family and yourself. It’s time to move closer to happiness. Website: https://www.godrejproperties.com/godrejecity/overview

    5) Infosys: Infosys is a global leader in consulting, technology and outsourcing solutions. As a proven partner focused on building tomorrow’s enterprise, Infosys enables clients in more than 30 countries to outperform the competition and stay ahead of the innovation curve. Website: http://www.infosys.com/pages/index.aspx

    6) Tech Hub Bangalore: partnering with the UK India Business Council to establish TechHub in Bangalore.TechHub is a community and workspace for technology entrepreneurs with 1000’s of members, building the most exciting startups in Europe. We have physical community spaces in London, Manchester, Bucharest, Swansea and Riga and have members from over 50 countries.The Bangalore site will be part of a wider scheme in partnership with other British firms such as Rolls Royce, ADS, Bangalore Cambridge Innovation Network, BAe and PA Consulting with the aim of forging stronger links between the UK and India. Website: http://www.techhub.com/blog/techhub-expands-to-bangalore/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/09/29/cheap-indian-tablet-seeks-to-bridge-digital-divide/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/02/17/digital-mapping-to-put-slums-on-the-map/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/09/entrepreneurs-use-mobiles-and-it-to-tackle-indian-traffic-gridlock/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/the-e-reader-battle-reaches-india/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/25/indian-city-slum-areas-become-newly-desirable-places-to-live/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/04/indian-id-project-is-foundation-for-future-economic-progress/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/01/indian-newspapers-thrive-with-economy/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/18/indians-fighting-inflation-with-technology/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/06/indian-solar-power-pack-powers-villages/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/31/new-weapon-against-crime-in-the-south/

    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-1/

    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 2022

  • 3D Home Printing Landmark: 10 Houses in a Day

    3D Home Printing Landmark: 10 Houses in a Day

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    The global South is experiencing urban growth on a scale unprecedented in human history, far outstripping the great urbanization wave that swept across Europe and North America during the 19th and 20th centuries.

    Faced with growth at this pace, governments – both national and local – often become overwhelmed by the rate of change and find it difficult to cope. One of the most common complaints urban-dwellers around the world have is about their living conditions. Even in developed countries, creating enough housing to match demand can be a struggle.

    Quality housing is crucial to human development and quality of life. Adequate living space and access to running water make a significant contribution to people’s health and well-being. Despite this obvious conclusion, millions of urban dwellers live in squalid conditions with poor sanitation, overcrowding, crime, pollution, noise and a general feeling of insecurity. Insecure people find it difficult to access stable jobs and suffer stigma for living in poor-quality neighbourhoods.

    But many initiatives are seeking to speed up the pace of home construction.

    These include the Moladi construction system from South Africa (moladi.net). Moladi uses moulds to assemble houses, so that the building skills required are minimal and easily learned. Built to a template that has been tested for structural soundness and using a design that produces a high-quality home both in structure and appearance, the Moladi system seeks to provide an alternative to makeshift homes that are structurally unsound and vulnerable to fires, earthquakes and other natural disasters.

    Another clever approach is a home and dwelling assembly system developed by architect Teddy Cruz (http://estudioteddycruz.com) (http://visarts.ucsd.edu/faculty/teddy-cruz) that allows slum dwellers to gradually construct a building in stages as they can afford it. It is earthquake-safe and fire resistant.

    Another approach turns to the fast-growing technology of 3D printing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing). This technology has gone mainstream in the past five years in the form of desktop-sized 3D printers, or fabricators as they are sometimes called. The machines assemble objects in an additive fashion – layer-by-layer – using digital designs from a computer.

    3D printers can make a complex object without having to resort to mass manufacturing. An accurate, one-off object can be created with the same precision as a machined object. Architects, for example, use the technology to make 3D models of their designs. And now a company in China is hoping to use 3D printers to make houses.

    The WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co. (http://www.yhbm.com/index.aspx) 3D printed 10 houses in 24 hours in Shanghai’s Qinpu district, reported Business Insider.

    This landmark achievement was accomplished with a giant printer – 152 meters long, 10 meters wide, and 6 meters high – which manufactured walls for the house from a mix of construction waste and cement.

    As a sign of the confidence the company has in the innovative construction technique, it built its own 10,000 square meter headquarters in one month using the same materials. The company’s chief executive officer, Ma Yihe, is also the inventor of the technique. It is a very flexible technology and the material can be tinted different colors according to the customer’s wishes. It is cheap to work with and is also less draining on environmental resources than traditional building materials.

    The 10 houses consist of two concrete side supporting walls with glass panels at the front and back and with a triangle roof. They will be used as offices at a high-tech industrial park in Shanghai. The company has big plans, hoping to use the technology to build more homes – and even skyscrapers.

    Competition is heating up as people around the world seek to perfect 3D technology to print houses to meet the growing demand for dwellings.

    In The Netherlands, Dutch architectural firm Dus Architects (dusarchitects.com)  commissioned the development of a leviathan 3D printer so it could print entire rooms. Modeled on a much smaller home desktop version, the Ultimaker (ultimaker.com), this printer creates whole rooms that are then assembled into custom-built houses.

    The 6-meter high KamerMaker (kamermaker.com), or “room builder”, is being used in Amsterdam to build a full-size house.

    The project is called “3D Print Canal House” (http://3dprintcanalhouse.com/). The printer assembles the rooms individually, and then they are snapped together to make a house. The internal structure of the building blocks are in a honey-comb pattern, which is then filled with a foam that becomes as hard as concrete.

    “For the first time in history, over half of the world’s population is living in cities,” Dus Architects founder Hans Vermeulen told cnet.com. “We need a rapid building technique to keep up the pace with the growth of the megacities. And we think 3D printing can be that technique.

    “We bought a container from the Internet and we transformed it into one of the biggest printers on this planet.”

    This technology can also easily use recycled waste materials and lower the pollution and cost of moving building materials around. The Dus Architects prototype house is expected to take three years to complete (so, still in its early development phase) and will look like a typical Dutch canal house with a pointy, gabled roof (http://www.build.com.au/gabled-roof).

    One of the pioneering advocates for using 3D technology to address the global South’s urbanization and housing challenge has been Larry Sass, director of the Digital Design Fabrication Group (http://ddf.mit.edu/) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

    Three technologies have been developed at MIT since the 1950s that have made digital fabrication possible – computer numerical control (CNC), which enables computers to control machines; computer-aided design software in the 1960s; and 3D printing in the 1980s to make solid models using digital designs.

    Sass told MIT’s Spectrum newsletter (spectrum.mit.edu) that large-scale 3D printing would mean “buildings will rise faster, use fewer resources, cost less, and be more delightful to the eye than ever before.”

    He envisions a future in which architects will be able to send their designs by computer to a 3D printer and it will then be able to start “printing” the building or a house accurately according to the original designs.

    The conventional way of making buildings has been stuck in the same approach since the 1800s, according to Sass. It uses highly skilled and extensive labour, it is slow and plagued by weather disruptions and urban congestion, and it is expensive, often using materials brought from far away.

    Digitally fabricating buildings takes a radically different approach: the building is made in a series of precision-cut, interlocking parts and then assembled on site like a jigsaw puzzle.

    “It’s the right delivery system for the developing world, because the developing world doesn’t have an infrastructure of tools, air guns, saws and power,” Sass said.

    “Design and high-quality construction is mostly for the rich,” added Sass, who was raised in Harlem, a New York City neighbourhood with high poverty levels. “I’ve always wanted to figure out how to bring design choice and architectural delight to the poor.”

    Published: July 2014

    Resources

    1) 3D Printing Technologies: A website exploring the development of 3D technology. Website: http://www.3d-printing-technologies.com/index.html

    2) Sweet Home 3D: An open source, free interior design software application that allows users to draw the plan of their house, arrange furniture and view in 3D. Website: sweethome3d.com

    3) A video showing how it was done is here: http://www.businessinsider.com/this-video-shows-how-a-company-3-d-printed-10-houses-in-a-day-2014-4.

    4) 3-D Printed Buildings for A Developing World from MIT’s Spectrum. Website: http://spectrum.mit.edu/articles/3-d-printed-buildings-for-a-developing-world/


    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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

    © David South Consulting 2023

  • Technological Innovation Alive in Brazil

    Technological Innovation Alive in Brazil

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    The growing digital economy in the global South is giving rise to a new generation of entrepreneurs and innovators.

    A University of California paper by Naazneen Barma found explosive potential in poorer countries to innovate, and challenged the view of developing countries as passive market places for products innovated in the industrialized world. She said that “in terms of their market power and their production and innovation possibilities, emerging economies are positioned to increase their presence in the digital era … poor consumers are increasingly driving modular innovation in production technologies, business models, organizational management, and marketing and distributional strategies.”

    It has been estimated that the number of people with equivalent to US $10,000 in annual income will double to 2 billion by 2015, creating hundreds of millions of new consumers for digital products.

    Two cutting-edge innovators from Brazil are tapping into this growing market. Both FunStation and Zeebo have developed technology specifically wrapped around the needs of Southern consumers and are growing across the South as a result.

    FunStation’s (http://www.funstation.com.br/blog.php)simple motto – “Touch – Get – Enjoy” – hides a savvy technological innovation aimed at the growing army of digital downloaders on the march across the South. Sao Paulo’s FunStation entertainment kiosk system serves up video, audiobooks, songs, and ringtones to mobile phones and MP3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3) players. Customers just need to plug into one of the large futuristic white kiosks, scroll through the choices, select what they want, pay and download. By going to the kiosk, customers avoid the need to download from the internet, which can take a lot of time depending on the connection and bandwidth. The kiosk is speedy, with 14 musical tracks downloaded to a device in 10 seconds.

    Apart from the convenience and speed of the kiosks, they also have other benefits: customers do not need to register with a download site like iTunes on the internet. This means they do not have to run the risks of giving away bank details or other personal information.

    Customers buy something called a Funcard which is similar to a pre-pay phone plastic phone card, with a PIN number. Cards are sold with values ranging from US $2 to US $50. The user just punches the number into the kiosk to pay for the download.

    The kiosks are being located in high-traffic places like festivals, airports, universities, retail shopping centres and transport systems.

    Founded in 2007, the company is a partnership between Bruno de Marchi, 35, computer science student Armando Perico, 24, and 60-year-old Marcos Maynard. The company already has the rights to sell half a million items and has 55 kiosks operating in Brazil, mostly in the country’s north. “People are poorer in those places,”de Marchi told Monocle magazine. “Usually they have an MP3 player but no computer.”

    The FunStations have also been successful outside of Brazil: 50 kiosks were sold to Mexico in March. It is launching in Chile later this year and in the United States in 2011. Always evolving, the business is also working with the University of Lugano in Switzerland to develop new software and keep the kiosks fresh and lively.

    Another Brazilian technology pioneer is Zeebo (http://www.zeeboinc.com). The brainchild of Reinaldo Normand, 34, Zeebo is a game-playing console that doesn’t require a CD or DVD, or connection to landline internet. It downloads games directly from remote servers using wireless 3G technology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3G)embedded in the console. It exploits the fast-growing penetration of mobile phone wireless networks across the South to download the games on the consoles.

    It has its eyes firmly on the global South’s rising middle-class families, who will use the consoles for game-playing and educational applications. It is currently available in Mexico and Brazil and is preparing to roll out across Asia. Normand studied at Tectoy S.A. in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and is a life-long gamer, entrepreneur, journalist and forward thinker. He conceived of a new 3D system for the developing world and contacted American company Qualcomm. He partnered with Mike Yuen at Qualcomm in San Diego, California, who was exploring new forms of gaming using innovative technologies.

    As Zeebo’s mission states, it is “tailored specifically to the economics and market realities of emerging economies. The Zeebo system fills an enormous unmet need in these regions. At the same time it opens an immense new market for interactive content and products.”

    Normand is ambitious and wants to reach a vast market of 340 million Chinese families. “By 2011, I want to close deals in China to manufacture televisions with this technology built in, therefore entering the homes of millions of families,” he told Monocle.

    Zeebo makes some games for the console and also buys in other games from big-name game makers like Electronic Arts and Activision. The games are downloaded from the internet using a 3G mobile chip already built in to the consoles. The games are priced between US $5 and US $13.

    The Zeebo system will roll out to China, the US and India in 2011, and Eastern Europe in 2012.

    Published: August 2010

    Resources

    • Afrinnovator: Is about telling the stories of African start-ups, African innovation, African made technology, African tech entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs. Their mission is to ‘Put Africa on the Map’ by covering these kinds of stories from all over Africa. As their website says, “if we don’t tell our own story, who will tell it for us?” Website: http://afrinnovator.com
    • AfricaUnsigned: This African alternative way of producing African music started this year. Unsigned artists record their music, funded by fans. Music fans from all over the world listen to the selection of artists, pick their favorite(s) and chip in a minimum of $1 dollar to the recording of a professional EP. The music is then distributed to the fans who backed the artist and sold on all major online stores (incl. Amazon & iTunes). Website: www.AfricaUnsigned.com
    • TechMasai: Pan-African start-up news and reviews. Website: www.techmasai.com
    • The Emerging Economies in the Digital Era: Market Places, Market Players, and Market Makers by Naazneen Barma, University of California. Website: http://tinyurl.com/3xjf2ps

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/02/17/african-digital-laser-breakthrough-promises-future-innovation/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/05/african-innovation-eco-system-taking-shape/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/05/18/african-innovation-helps-make-banking-transactions-safer/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/16/brazils-agricultural-success-teaches-south-how-to-grow/

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

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/10/bringing-the-invention-and-innovation-mindset-to-young-kenyans/

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

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/04/25/china-looking-to-lead-on-robot-innovation/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/24/flurry-of-anti-poverty-innovations/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/24/frugal-innovation-trend-meets-global-souths-innovation-culture/

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    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/04/27/innovation-from-the-global-south/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/12/14/innovation-in-growing-cities-to-prevent-social-exclusion/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/11/innovation-cairos-green-technology-pioneers/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/04/innovation-villages-tackling-mdgs/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/10/22/innovations-in-green-economy-top-three-agenda/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/27/kenyan-mobile-phone-innovations/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/02/new-3d-technology-makes-innovation-breakthrough-and-puts-mind-over-matter/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/09/next-generation-of-innovation-for-the-grassroots/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2016/04/14/southern-innovator-and-the-growing-global-innovation-culture-14-april-2016/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-1/

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