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  • Time-Tested Iranian Solutions to Cool and Refrigerate

    Time-Tested Iranian Solutions to Cool and Refrigerate

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    Keeping food cool is critical for human health. No matter what the climate, a cool environment will prolong food preservation, stave off spoilage and lower the risk of food poisoning. This is crucial for the poor because it means they can reduce food waste and avoid illnesses caused by food poisoning. Diarrhea is a common problem when people do not have access to refrigeration for their food.

    Food security is also enhanced, as more can be stored and less thrown away as waste. Keeping food cool also means less need for preservation techniques, such as using salt, spices or smoke. Salt and smoke both can have adverse affects on human health. Salt increases sodium in the diet, which leads to high blood pressure, and smoke is a carcinogen which can lead to various forms of cancer.

    It is healthier to keep food in its natural state – and keep it cool.

    While the invention of the electric refrigerator was a major breakthrough, it requires a steady supply of electricity, which is expensive and difficult for many people.

    Various pre-electric refrigeration technologies have been developed over the centuries. Among them was a pioneering technology used in Persia (modern-day Iran) as far back as the 11th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avicenna). And now, it is being looked to once again today as a sustainable refrigeration solution that does not damage the environment.

    Iran’s solution involves creating a domed ice house made from earth bricks. Many ancient ice houses have been discovered on the edge of deserts, where ice was scarce and supplies remote. The solution was to create a dugout channel at the rear of a domed house and then flood the channel with water. When the temperature dropped at night in the desert, the water would freeze into ice.

    Rising early in the morning, the resident would break up the ice into blocks and store them inside the ice house. This was repeated night after night until there was enough ice in the house that it could last the summer months.

    The water was drawn from elaborate irrigation systems used for farming.

    The ice houses were cone and dome-shaped and included some with underground structures. To date, a project headed by Dr. Hemming Jorgensen has documented 129 centuries-old ice houses at the fringe areas of large deserts in Iran. Jorgensen, from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, has documented the use of these structures on his “Ice Houses of Iran” website (http://www.hemmingjorgensen.com/).

    In 18th and 19th century England, ice houses were also common place in country estates to keep food cool in kitchens. Today, there are growing numbers of people around the world who are turning to technologies such as ice houses to find sustainable, non-electric, low-carbon alternatives to electric refrigeration.

    Another environmentally friendly cooling solution from Iran involves using wind catchers to circulate air during the hotter months. Called bagdir wind towers, or windcatchers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher), they have been used in Yadz, Iran since the 19th century.

    Profiled in Green Building Magazine (http://www.greenbuildingpress.co.uk/product_details.php?category_id=10&item_id=235), the wind towers are made of stone, and channel wind down into a shaft to cool or heat the rooms below. It is an air circulation solution that does not take any energy – because it uses the wind – and is carbon neutral. In summer, the wind is drawn down into a stone chimney by low air pressure zones in the ventilation system. It is cooled, and then is circulated through the dwelling, rising as it warms up through the house. This is combined with a strategy of moving rooms depending on how hot or cool they are, adjusting clothing based on the temperature, or even placing water on the floor to cool the air.

    In Nigeria in West Africa, a cooler called the zeer (http://practicalaction.org/zeer-pots) has been developed. It works like this: two ceramic earthenware pots of different sizes are arranged one inside the other. The space between the pots is filled with wet sand and kept moist. The user then places drinks or vegetables inside and covers it with a damp cloth. As the water from the moist sand evaporates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporation), the air inside the centre pot is cooled several degrees, enough to preserve some foods and drinks.

    Published: June 2013

    Resources

    1) ChotuKool fridge: The ChotuKool fridge is designed to stay cool for hours without electricity and to use half the power of conventional refrigerators. Priced at US $69, it is targeted at India’s poor. Website: (http://www.new.godrej.com/godrej/godrej/index.aspx?id=1)

    2) Ice house designs from the 18th and 19th century in the United Kingdom. Website: http://www.icehouses.co.uk/petworth.htm

    3) The High Desert Chronicles: “Sometimes you need to look back to move forward!”. Details use of contemporary ice houses in the desert for refrigeration. Website: http://www.highdesertchronicles.com/2012/10/ice-in-the-high-desert-without-electricity-or-refrigeration/

    4) History Magazine: The Impact of Refrigeration: The role played by refrigeration throughout human history. Website: http://www.history-magazine.com/refrig.html

    5) Methods of Alternative Refrigeration: Three solutions in detail. Website: http://www.provident-living-today.com/Alternative-Refrigeration.html

    Southern Innovator logo

    London Edit

    31 July 2013

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/05/cool-food-for-the-poor/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/06/23/innovative-ways-to-collect-water-from-air/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/24/iranian-savings-funds-to-tackle-loan-drought/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-4/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-5/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/02/05/study-says-jetliner-air-quality-poses-health-risks-cupe-takes-on-airline-industry-with-findings-of-survey/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/26/tackling-chinas-air-pollution-crisis-an-innovative-solution/

    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

  • Battery Business Brings Tanzanians Cheap Electricity

    Battery Business Brings Tanzanians Cheap Electricity

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    Access to electricity is critical for making substantial development gains. With steady supplies of electricity, it is possible to read and study at night, to run modern appliances, to better use the latest information technologies and to work using time- and labour-saving devices. A home with electricity literally switches the light on modern life and gives a family huge advantages compared to those without electricity.

    But there are two potential obstacles to providing electricity for the poor: one is just getting access to a steady supply; the other is paying for it.

    In Africa, much of the population suffers from an electricity famine. The situation is worse than on any other continent: the proportion of people in Africa still without electricity is higher – and the rate of urban electrification is lower – than anywhere else. Four out of five rural residents in Africa live without electricity. The rate of rural electrification is also lower than on any other continent and the proportion of Africans who depend on inefficient traditional energy sources is higher than elsewhere (Desertec-Africa).

    EGG-energy (http://egg-energy.com) is a Tanzanian company using an innovative business model to bring affordable electricity to rural communities.

    Its co-founder, Jamie Yang, said Tanzania has a huge potential market for offgrid energy services. About 85 per cent of the population lacks access to electricity, a figure that rises to 98 per cent of the rural population.

    EGG-energy says it is “dedicated to helping low-income consumers in sub-Saharan Africa gain access to clean, affordable energy, using a unique strategy based around portable rechargeable batteries.” The company has eight full-time staff based in their Makumbusho office, 6 kilometres north of Dar es Salaam, the capital.

    It calls its system the “portable grid,” and it works like this: customers have a power system installed in their home that runs on brick-sized, re-chargeable batteries. The batteries are re-charged at a central charging station using power from the Tanzanian power grid, and sent to local distribution centres where customers can pick them up. Customers rent the batteries for a subscription fee, and they last about five nights in a home. When the battery is empty, the customer returns it, swaps for a fresh battery and pays a small swapping fee.

    It is a brilliant solution to the problem of getting power from the main Tanzanian power grid to people’s homes. According to EGG-energy, most Tanzanians live within 5 kilometres from a power grid line. Yet the majority of the population lack access to electricity.

    “After researching the energy situation in Tanzania and other countries with similar electricity access problems, it became clear that one of the primary problems was a lack of last-mile distribution,” explained Yang. “The only way to get power from the source into homes and businesses were power lines, and for the vast majority of rural Tanzanians, this was very much out of reach.

    We saw situations in which power lines would pass right over large populations that were still using kerosene for lighting. We also saw that distributed generation like solar was finding only very limited markets because there was no share or sell power from that source without an affordable way to distribute the electricity.”

    While EGG-energy is based in Tanzania, it hopes hope to expand across the developing world.

    In order to develop an effective distribution network, EGG-energy partners with local store owners and delivery businesses to help with distributing the batteries. The batteries are based on those used in the airline industry and are light enough to be held in one hand.

    Yang believes marketing is critical to the success of the technology.

    “Don’t underestimate the cost of sales, marketing, and distribution,” he said.

    “Many companies focus on the technology and in lowering the cost of the technology, while not paying enough attention to the gaps in the distribution channels.

    “We have a sales team that communicates what we do through a variety of methods, including door-to-door sales, road shows and village meetings. We also make contact with the local political leaders and offer referral awards to our existing customers. Potential customers come to our charging stations to purchase the system and to connect to EGG.”

    When a customer signs up with EGG-energy, a technician is dispatched to their home to make sure the electricity system is sound and effective. The company also sells energy-efficient lights, radios and mobile phone chargers to complement the electricity system. It’s a wise business model, since having a steady and reliable supply of electricity is a great motivator for customers to purchase other electric-powered appliances.

    “We have technicians that have received vocational training through the Tanzanian system and technicians that we train ourselves,” Yang said. “We have very standardized electricity installations that are easy to teach, and have more experienced technicians that we rely on for troubleshooting and support.”

    EGG-energy also makes the claim it can reduce a household’s energy expenses by 50 per cent as they make the switch from traditional batteries for radios and kerosene lamps for light.

    EGG-energy calls itself a “for-profit company with a social mission.” It sees the provision of affordable electricity and energy as a spur for small entrepreneurs to build their businesses, boost educational opportunities through longer study time, and help with connecting families with the outside world.

    It uses regular feedback with customers to make sure their service is actually cheaper than other options – a good habit for any business looking to build a lasting customer relationship.

    “One of the key deficiencies in the energy supply chain is customer support,” said Yang. “We have seen multiple solar installations given by NGOs to community organizations that are no longer functioning because the user doesn’t have someone reliable to call or hasn’t allotted a budget to maintain the system.

    “Customer support is a key component of last mile distribution, and something that EGG-energy is focusing on as an energy services company with a local, physical presence.”

    Published: April 2012

    Resources

    1) ANSOLE (the African Network for Solar Energy) is a research-oriented network of 200 scientists from 22 African and 10 non-African countries. It believes, according to Mammo Muchie, founding editor of the African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation, and Development, “solar power will become the major renewable energy source on the continent only by organized research, training, design, and engineering.” Website: ansole.org

    2) The Kenya-based non-governmental organization (NGO) Access: energy is tackling the problem of 84 per cent of Kenyans – 32 million people – lacking access to electricity at home. It is doing this by teaching people how to make and assemble wind turbines out of scrap metal and car parts and other materials found within communities. Their turbine design is called the Night Heron Turbine. Website: http://access-collective.com/energy/

    4) TANESCO: Tanzania Electric Supply Company: Website: http://www.tanesco.co.tz

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/24/brazilian-solar-powered-wifi-for-poor-schools/

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

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/20/new-battery-back-up-technology-targeting-developing-countries-and-remote-regions/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/02/powerful-solar-light-spurring-income-making-opportunities/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/24/solar-power-bringing-light-and-opportunity-to-the-poor/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/24/solar-powered-mobile-clinics-to-boost-rural-healthcare-in-africa/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/30/solar-powered-village-kick-starts-development-goals/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/06/solar-sisters-doing-it-for-themselves-tackling-african-light-famine/

    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-4/

    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

  • Global South Urbanization Does Not Have to Harm Biodiversity

    Global South Urbanization Does Not Have to Harm Biodiversity

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    How to balance fragile ecosystems with rapid urbanization will be the challenge for planners and governments across the global South in the coming years. The urbanization trend is clear: the world’s total urban area is expected to triple between 2000 and 2030, with urban populations set to double to around 4.9 billion in the same period (UNEP). This urban expansion will draw heavily on water and other natural resources and will consume prime agricultural land.

    Global urbanization will have significant implications for biodiversity and ecosystems if current trends continue, with knock-on effects for human health and development, according to a new assessment by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

    Cities and Biodiversity Outlook – the first global analysis of how projected patterns of urban land expansion will affect biodiversity and crucial ecosystems – argues that promoting low-carbon, resource-efficient urban development can counter urbanization’s adverse effects on biodiversity while improving quality of life.

    “The way our cities are designed, the way people live in them and the policy decisions of local authorities, will define, to a large extent, future global sustainability,” said Braulio Dias, Executive Secretary of the CBD.

    “The innovation lies not so much in developing new infrastructural technologies and approaches but to work with what we already have. The results often require fewer economic resources and are more sustainable,” he added.

    The report says urban expansion is occurring fast in areas close to biodiversity ‘hotspots’ and coastal zones. And rapidly urbanizing regions, such as large and mid-size settlements in sub-Saharan Africa, India and China, often lack resources to implement sustainable urban planning.

    But the study found that cities do not need to be in conflict with plant and animal species and ecosystems. They can, in fact, protect species, as is the case with Belgium, where 50 per cent of the country’s floral species are found in Brussels, or Poland, where 65 per cent of the country’s bird species occur in Warsaw.

    At the Alexander von Humboldt Research Institute in Bogota, Colombia (humboldt.org.co) researchers have been thinking about how to get this balance right and make sure the growing cities of the future are not ecological disasters.

    According to Juana Marino and Maria Angélica Mejia at the Institute’s Biological Resources Policy Program – which investigates “Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Urban-Regional Environments” – how cities grow and develop must change.

    They believe cities need to take into account the resources they require to function and the impact this has on biodiversity and ecosystems.

    “The more people who arrive in cities, the more they demand goods and services (in a massive way!): roads, housing, infrastructure, food, water – (creating) an impressive amount of waste, challenging traditional waste management and sanitation policies,” said Marino.

    In short, “Cities enhance consumption.”

    The Humboldt researchers believe common patterns can be seen across the global South, where ecosystems “surrounding urban areas are deforested and have significant levels of water and air pollution; they also become deeply transformed by informal settlements.”

    This process means cities “lose their ability to be resilient, they become highly vulnerable to global change and they decrease their production of ecosystem services to maintain human well-being in cities.”

    They argue that human settlements must be sustainably planned for, with ecological resilience and human well-being. If this is not done, areas suitable for agricultural production and biodiversity preservation will be harmed.

    While better planning is needed there also needs to be long-term thinking.

    But planning and managing are not the only things required: “it is a matter of design” if new “resilient” urban-rural landscapes are to be created.

    And what can be done? They believe better analysis is required and it needs to take on social and cultural knowledge, and take in the border regions around cities, the “suburban, peri-urban and other ‘transition’ landscapes should become main actors in these relationships, not mere by-products; (they are) compromise territories between a lack of definition and low governance.”

    These complex relationships with the border ecosystems of cities need to be communicated to the general public in simple, user-friendly ways so they can understand how important these areas are to the overall health of the city.

    In Latin America, the cities of Curitiba (Brazil) and Bogotá and Medellin (Colombia) have made great strides in managing and planning for biodiversity and ecosystem services, they say. But it is not just as simple as recording the number of native species and the percentage of protected areas in urban places. Links need to be created between “social, scientific and political” elements to create “socio-ecological indicators” that can be developed and turned into “easy-to-adopt mechanisms” for people to use.

    And they see innovation as the way to do this. Innovation is critical if cities and urban areas are to avoid widespread destruction of biodiversity as urbanization increases.

    “Innovation is not just an option – it is a ‘must’,” said Marino. “Not just the technical innovation already being carried on by infrastructure, transport and building sectors that are rapidly changing their patterns based on mitigation technologies.

    “Innovation is also needed in terms of biodiversity, biotechnology, information and knowledge production; appropriation, use and management. Knowledge turns into innovation when appropriated by social spheres; when it enters the social and political arenas.”

    Environmental governance can be strengthened “when promoting top-down and bottom-up innovations.”

    Published: December 2012

    Resources

    1) Environmental Public Awareness Handbook: Case Studies and Lessons Learned in Mongolia. Website: http://tinyurl.com/yhjyd7h

    2) Hyderabad Case Study: During the recent UN biodiversity talks in Hyderabad, the International Union for Conservation of Nature gave journalists the opportunity to see how biodiversity can thrive in the middle of a bustling metropolis. Website: http://www.rtcc.org/hyderabad-a-showcase-of-urban-biodiversity/

    3) UNEP: A Global Partnership on Cities and Biodiversity was launched by UNEP, the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), UN-HABITAT, ICLEI, IUCN Countdown 2010, UNITAR, UNESCO and a Steering Group of Mayors from Curitiba, Montreal, Bonn, Nagoya and Johannesburg to bring together existing initiatives on cities and biodiversity. Website: http://www.unep.org/urban_environment/issues/biodiversity.asp

    4) Nature in the City: Nature in the City, a project of Earth Island Institute, is San Francisco’s first organization wholly dedicated to ecological conservation, restoration and stewardship of the Franciscan bioregion. Website: http://natureinthecity.org/urbanbiodiversity.php

    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

  • African Innovation Eco-system Taking Shape

    African Innovation Eco-system Taking Shape

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    How to increase the rate of innovation in Africa? And specifically, innovation that actually improves people’s lives and reduces poverty. It is a hard question to answer, but some are putting in place the building blocks of a 21st century innovation culture by riding the information technology revolution as it rolls across Africa.

    The transformative story of mobile phones in Africa has captured the attention of the world. Technologies like mobile phone payment systems developed in Africa are now being rolled out around the globe.

    But there is more to come as undersea cables increase the communications links between African nations and the rest of the world. New undersea cables including TEAMs, Seacom and Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) (eassy.org) are vastly increasing the continent’s Internet capacity and bandwidth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_%28computing%29).

    These communications links will revolutionize the type and scale of innovation that can happen in Africa.

    As websites like AfriGadget (afrigadget.com) amply prove, there is already an entrenched do-it-yourself innovation culture hard-wired into daily life on the continent. While impressively resourceful and able to make the most of often very little, this innovation culture is often confined to a narrow geographical area. And this is the difference the new information technologies will make: They will allow this energetic and resourceful innovators’ culture to develop businesses and business models that can reach beyond narrow geographical parameters.

    New technologies will also accelerate the spread of new ideas and solutions.

    Across the continent, ways and means are being stitched together that enable people to transcend borders and old divisions and obstacles to connect with like-minded collaborators, seek out funding and take ideas from dreams to schemes and eventually to continent- and world-straddling levels.

    According to the Deloitte 2011 East Africa Private Equity Confidence Survey: Promising 2012, “Many investors see East Africa’s strong growth potential as a driver of better investment performance than in South Africa: This is a huge shift in private equity attitudes toward Africa, which have been historically focused on South Africa. East African investment potential is seen as roughly on par with West Africa, where similar growth dynamics are at play.”

    Identifying the elements that are making this innovation culture flourish came under analysis in a recent post on the Afrinnovator website (afrinnovator.com). Afrinnovator is dedicated to “telling the stories of African startups, African innovation, African made technology, African tech entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs.”

    While it is well known that new infrastructure, better governance, new policies, and new services like mobile phones and mobile money have made a big difference in shifting perceptions of Africa from despair to optimism, Afrinnovator found there were other key ingredients to this innovation renaissance.

    Afrinnovator argues there are four elements that have come together to change circumstances for innovators on the continent: education, mentoring and incubators, funding, and showcase events.

    Afrinnovator found education was critical to the quality of emerging technological innovations. Information and communication technology (ICT) education has moved from just computer science courses to a vast array of options, from bachelors degrees to masters programmes.

    For mentoring and incubators, Afrinnovator found hubs and incubators are providing places for young educated people to go to and get down to work.

    Examples include iHub (http://ihub.co.ke/pages/home.php), mLab East Africa (http://mlab.co.ke/pages/home.php), ccHub (Co-Creation Hub Nigeria) (http://cchubnigeria.com/about-cchub/), Lusaka, Zambia’s Bongohive (bongohive.com), iLab Africa (http://ilabafrica.ac.ke/) NaiLab (http://nailab.co.ke/) iBid Labs (http://ibidlabs.com/) and Uganda’s HiveColab (http://hivecolab.org/), among others. These places offer like-minded fellowship and access to mentors to take them on the journey from “idea to viable profitable business.”

    According to Business Daily Africa, “There are more than 3,000 software developers who have come up with both mobile and personal computer-based software applications that are changing lives across the continent.”

    A transformation in funding access has seen a renaissance in new thinking that is transforming tech start-ups into viable businesses. Kenya has the Kenya ICT Board (http://www.ict.go.ke/) and it awards US $50,000 through its Tandaa grant programme (https://sites.google.com/a/ict.go.ke/tandaa/).

    Because of this enthusiastic local support, the World Bank is now committing a US $55 million grant targeting Kenya’s technology innovators to be distributed through the Kenya ICT Board.

    East Africa also saw 16 new investor funds launch in 2011 alone. They include early-stage investor funds like eVentures Fund Africa (eVA) (http://www.eva-fund.com/), which calls itself “the first venture capital firm investing in African SME’s active in digital media.” Another is Kenya-based 88mph (http://www.humanipo.com/88mph), with its “focus on startups targeting the East African mobile and web market.”

    In Kenya, the World Bank money will be used to help technology developers bring to market simple solutions in health and education.

    According to the World Bank (http://tinyurl.com/cm3g2rf), “Kenya has put in place the second-fastest broadband on the continent (after Ghana), which has reduced the wholesale internet capacity prices by over 90% and increased internet penetration from 3% to 37% of the population in the past decade. Today, about 90% of Kenyan adults have or have the use of a mobile phone.”

    And the final game-changer, according to Afrinnovator, is “showcase events.”

    These events give investors and potential partners the opportunity to meet start-ups and explore their new ideas.

    Examples include DEMO (http://www.demo.com/ehome/index.php?eventid=29414&amp😉 – which connects the idea people with the money people – and Pivot East in East Africa (http://pivoteast.com/). Pivot East provides 25 technology entrepreneurs with the opportunity to make a pitch in front of investors. DEMO is working with USAID, Microsoft, Nokia and others to launch DEMO Africa in Nairobi, Kenya from 21 to 22 October 2012.

    Afrinnovator concludes: “This is the last virgin tech landscape left on the planet. The best time to become a player in the African technology innovation ecosystem is now.”

    Published: July 2012

    Resources

    1) Read more about Africa’s evolving innovation system. Website: http://afrinnovator.com/blog/2012/06/13/the-innovation-ecosystem-in-eastafrica/

    2) Southern Innovator: Youth and Entrepreneurship Issue. Website: http://www.scribd.com/doc/86451057/Southern-Innovator-Magazine-Issue-2

    3) Southern Innovator: Mobile Phones and Information Technology Issue. Website: http://www.scribd.com/doc/57980406/Southern-Innovator-

    Magazine-Issue-1

    4) Notes from ‘Understanding Broadband Demand in Africa: Internet Going Mobile’. Website: http://www.oafrica.com/mobile/notes-from-understanding-broadband-demandin-africa-internet-going-mobile/

    5) Deloitte Private Equity Survey 2012. Website: deloitte.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.  

    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