Maker Faire Africa, Accra, Saturday – Workshops
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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Workshop: Localization – Suuch Solutions, Ghana
- everybody can localize
- provides fonts with every African symbol
- different date formats, currency symbols
- translations are stored in the kasaharow database
- low presence in Africa
- not available in many African languages – only one officially
- call for people: localize Firefox to your language
- site support in many local languages – currently 8
- trying to foster creation of content in African languages
- faster for people in Africa – optimization for low bandwidth
Localization is not just translation – new words may not have a translation in e.g. Twi
ANLoc – the African network for localization – group of localization companies, trying to formalize their procedure
Language is part of who you are – that’s a huge reason to advocate localization of content and usage of language
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IDDS – chlorine dosing team
IDDS – chlorine production team
Notes from IDDS final presentation
Tosh – Nairobits
Offering IT and webdesign education to disadvantaged youth in Nairobi
- Teaching also entrepreneurship
- Also developing Flash-games
- Many great designed webpages
- Curriculum is online
Paul Sika – Photographer
Photographer and entrepreneur
- scripting pictures as if scripting for a movie
- started casting people – young actors
- important – keeping artistic integrity at the beginning of the career, not being commercial too early
Sam Kessie – filma maker
Searching for collaborators on a new movie
- showing the trailer
- “Mourning movies”
- shot in 3 days
- cost very little money
- high quality
Trying to make movies from Ghana more interesting to international community – Ghana has a lot of stories to tell
Where do you get your inspiration from?
- was a former psychology student – life in general gives ideas
- it’s often like a comedy because that’s often the only way we can handle that
IDDS – energy production team
How long will the battery last using a light?
- 60 watt-hours of energy in a can
- 3 D-cell batteries
Johannes – furniture maker – planiture
Rented a room when going to university in Kumasi, but there was nothing there – even had to sit on the floor
Experimented with various materials -> Decided to create furniture from plastic bottles
- All people who ses it are amazed
- dream: house from plastic bottles
- raising funds now
- trying to rebuild all the children’s centers in Ghana
All problems’ solutions lie in yourself
Production cost?
- way cheaper than usual chairs ~60% less
- everything was from recycling
How many bottles would a house need and how long would it take?
- probably millions of bottles
- many bottles are donated, a woman collects them for him at the market
Kenneth Mubuyaete – Zambulance at Disacare wheelchair centre
Organization provides aim for people with disabilities
- should empower them to be able to earn a living on their own
Generating a device to easily move people with disabilities, creating several devices for disabled people now
Where does the material come from?
- most things locally, things that are not produced locally from the region (Kenya)
IDDS – plastic recycling team
Florian Sturm, ICT4D.at – Hello Africa, a movie on mobile phone culture in Zanzibar
More information on Hello Africa
Maker Faire Africa, Accra, Saturday – Workshops
was published on 15.08.2009 by Florian Sturm. It files under global
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August 19th, 2009 at 16:08
Hi,
Just had a couple of corrections for the information you have on me from the Saturday Aug 15 presentation.
Sam Kessie – filmmaker
Searching for collaborators on a new movie
* showing the trailer
* “Mourning movies” – This is Mourning Motives
* shot in 3 days
* cost very little money
* high quality
Trying to make movies from Ghana more interesting to international community – Ghana has a lot of stories to tell
Where do you get your inspiration from?
* was a former psychology student – life in general gives ideas
* it’s often like a comedy because that’s often the only way we can handle that intense drama and chaos life generally throws at us.
Thanks 🙂
March 10th, 2010 at 13:46
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