Maker Faire Africa, Accra, Friday: sessions 2nd part
Notes from the Maker Faire Africa 2009 in Accra, Ghana from Friday 14th to Sunday 16th August.
Follow the MFA09 aggregator on Maneno.
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Panel: African Invention – what drives innovation on the continent?
Dominic Wanjihia, Kenya
Nana Aquah Kofi, Ghana
Emeka Okafor, Nigeria
William Kamkwamba, Malawi
Impediments of innovation
- The old generation has a mindset not trusting the youth and not encouraging them to try things
- Teachers are often not too creative, curious pupils are often shut down
- Often education is seen with an end – a degree
Advice
- Delivering constant quality is hard but quality is the key for international recognition
- Look at your neighbours (Mala, Cameroon, …) before seeking approval internationally
- Look at what people do, rather than what degree they have
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Panel: Dissemination, Models for Technology Diffusion
Erik Hersman, AfriGadget
Amy smith, IDDS
FabLab Ghana
FabLab Kenya
Engineers for change
IDDS: Create prototypes, not papers; create technology and technologists
Engineers for change:
- repository for problems and solutions
- project management & communication tool
- network for engineers internationally
There is no mechanism with which to share best practices
Often people just can’t invest in new technologies because the capital and time is scarce
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Scott Fifer – Go Campaign Prize Announcement
NGO supporting projects helping children – the future of Africa depends on the future of its children
Scholarship for makers organizing workshops
- gocampaign.org
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Makers show & tell
IDDS – playground power team
Notes from IDDS final presentation
Is this being disseminated and how?
- Thinking about using the merry-go-round for advertising
- Approaching school systems
What was the biggest challenge?
- making it cheap
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Jodie Wu
Just finished MIT, talking about a project started 2 years ago
Technology to shell maize
- bicycle used for that purpose
- bike-device was rented and payed itself off in 20 days
- right now – create an interface for the bike to attach any technology to it
- globalcyclesolutions.com
How about releasing the designs – when you actually want to make profit?
- the basic technology has been around for hundreds of years
- I see it as a success when people are copying it
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Panel: From invention to investor – getting venture finance to perfect your idea
Emeka Okafor
Mark Grimes, NedSpace
Nii Simmonds, Nubian Cheetah
Problem in Africa: many inventions don’t get investment easily, the investment market is quite underdeveloped currently
Kiva.org is a great idea – allowing everybody to look at entrepreneurs in various countries and invest in their business
People talk about technology – but we need to look at basic stuff
Also corporate social responsibility programs will not bridge the gap – as big companies will not fund their ultimate opponents
Due to the crisis now is the time to make money – and eventually make the world a better place
Africa is open for business (Carol Pineau) and not different to other continents
Challenges
- funding – one reason why this event is hold
- support from experiences person – platforms such as Nedspace provide a solution
- having an office – a company address
One model is to look at others and adapt their behavious to your environment
Maker Faire Africa, Accra, Friday: sessions 2nd part
was published on 14.08.2009 by Florian Sturm. It files under sub saharan africa
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August 17th, 2009 at 17:14
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