the African Uptimist

EMERGENCY keeps the heat out with solar energy and cool architecture in Salam, Sudan

Afromusing points us to an inspiring and practical example of sustainability principles in the design of a solar energy system for a hospital in Sudan.  While at the  TEDGlobal conference in Arusha last month, Afromusing's Juliana met Manuel Toscano, who works for EMERGENCY USA:

We talked shortly about solar power being a great technology for use in remote areas. He filled me in on a hospital that was designed using the following guiding principles.

• The idea of a “hollow” space and a pavilion-based system;
• The choice of the best possible technology given the context;
• The search for an ethical language for this type of architecture.

Hollow spaces...context-sensitive technologies...architecture as an expression of ethical discourse...!  Talk about thinking outside the box! The elaboration of these profound principles is a must-read for anyone seriously looking for concrete evidence that sustainability principles really work--even in the most unlikely places.   Download the  PDF document and see for yourself.

I hope someone at EMERGENCY is closely monitoring and documenting the performance of Salam hospital's energy system and the architectural design. Assessments of the benefits and costs--tangible and intangible--at local and national levels will also be helpful.  At the very least, such intelligence can be used to determine whether, and to what extent, these simple but effective novelties are indeed superior to conventional approaches in similar contexts.  If you have been tracking this space, it won't be hard for you to predict that following EMERGENCY's guidelines will consistently lead to cool, comfortable buildings in the tropics.  Congratulations to all those who worked so hard to build Salam's energy efficient, solar powered hospital, bringing effective medical services to 14 year-old Sunia and all others who need it in Sudan and beyond.

Changing the message of the environmental movement

The Good Human has just joined my favorite bloggers' list for crafting a short but brilliant piece of advice for the environmental movement in a post titled "Stop worrying, the planet will survive."  The writer does not mince words:

...[T]he average human sees the earth as much bigger than themselves, and thus much more powerful…and as such can fix itself without our help. And in fact it will…by getting rid of us.

If we continue our "unending assault on the environment," then we should expect to pay the ultimate price when the planet--which doesn't take prisoners by the way--strikes back.  The Good Human advises that a better way to get people to give a damn about global warming is to prove to them that it as an imposition on their own personal lives.  Despite a few inconsistencies here and there, The Good Human's central message should be treated with utmost seriousness as a timely word to the wise.

Nelson Mandela Bay residents to benefit from historic renewable power deals

First of all, congratulations and happy 89th birthday to the incomparable Nelson Mandela, one of the greatest leaders in our modern era.  For the residents of Nelson Mandela bay, South Africa, July 2007 also marks another important event in their lives--their municipality made history on July 4th as "...the first local authority in the country to kick-start renewable energy projects valued at billions of rands, aimed at providing its residents with reliable and affordable alternative energy."  Reporting on this revolutionary achievement, Max Matavire of Solar Intelligence explains:

Four renewable energy contracts were signed between the municipality and a consortium of companies led by Lereko Sustainability and the Central Energy Fund, bringing to an end months of highly technical negotiations.  The consortium will be involved in three of the four projects, but one will be done jointly with Straits Group, which is already involved in the multi-million rand chemical plant to be built at Coega IDZ.  The actual projects to be implemented in two to three months are the demand side management, also called energy efficiency, the solar water geyser project and the landfill gas in which methane gas is to be utilised.  The fourth project...which will be finalised in the “near future” [will utilize] wind energy from the wind farms and small scale hydro electricity projects.

In these times of climate change and energy insecurity, it is good to see Nelson Mandela bay residents and leaders blazing a clean energy path to a sustainable future.  They must have been inspired, no doubt by some of that vision, wisdom and courage that Mandela brought, and continues to bring to African--nay--global society, politics, and life.  As we celebrate this 89th year of his life, we wish him continued good health and happiness for many, many more years to come.

New mobile technologies, microfinancing and the war on poverty

Embedded in an interesting New York Times article by Chris Nickolson is a subtle yet powerful message for promoters of mobile devises --and indeed, any new technology--in the war against poverty:  The best results are achieved when you move with the natural flow of grassroots creativity.  Often, this means abandoning or suppressing preconceived notions, and building on spontaneous and creative adaptations of the new technology by local people to meet their needs.

What does that mean, exactly?  Well, consider the recent experience of Vodafone, described in the article:

When Vodafone began a pilot cellphone project in Kenya, Nick Hughes, the company’s head of international payments, said, “the idea was to reduce the cost of loan disbursal and recovery, but what we found was that customers were using it for person-to-person transfers.”  As a result, the company introduced a commercial program in Kenya three months ago to make financial transactions possible by mobile phone. Customers have flocked to the service. “We’ve passed the 175,000 mark,” Mr. Hughes said, “and they’re signing up at about 2,500 a day.”

See? They went in looking to minimize transaction costs, reduce risks, maximize profits--the usual business.  But to their immense credit, Vodafone quickly realized that the local people had a far better idea, and they grabbed the opportunity to create a matching program that is now maximizing benefits for company and customers.  Everybody is winning.

There are other heroes in this fascinating little article.  Consider Jamii Bora, "the largest microfinance institution in Kenya, " with over 150,000 borrowers.

The organization, whose name means “good families” in Swahili, began to experiment last year with mobile point-of-sale devices, magnetic-stripe cards and fingerprint authentication to take its remote branches online.

Working closely with Craft Silicon to deploy point-of-sale devices, Jamii Bora is expanding a robust and accessible system that "allows clients in the countryside to make loan repayments, receive disbursements and do other business electronically. Once clients log in with a fingertip, authenticating their identity, they are connected to a central database in Nairobi."

i think Jamii Bora's success expresses a message that is greater than the sum of its technological innovations.  A code that is apparently embedded deep in the hearts and minds of its staff, and is beautifully articulated by one of them, Ms. Munro:

We refuse to abandon the poor. Actually, we are the poor: all our staff are recruited from our members.

Evidently, this message resonates with Vodafone, Nokia, and Craft Silicon.  And with a growing army of socially responsible investors now marching against poverty in Africa and other theaters at the "Bottom of the Pyramid."

 

Web 3.0?!

Just when i thought we had the "Web 2.0" thing down pat, here comes the How to Split an Atom site with the longest blog post i have ever read talking about--"Web 3.0"?  They define Web 3.0 as "Highly specialized information silos, moderated by a cult of personality, validated by the community, and put into context with the inclusion of meta-data through widgets," and go on to elaborate.  For me, the most convincing is what they have to say about search:

• Search engines will be replaced by smaller, specialized searchlets
• Search engines will be able to understand context through tagging and community interaction.
• Search “profiles” will become portable, allowing us to have the digital equivalent of body language.
• Natural language search will be improved once search engines have a stronger understanding of context.
• People search will become more important.
• Guided / Editorial search will be a stopgap where search engines still fail to provide relevance.

The 2007 AfricaLoft Cyber Essay Competition

AfricanLoft is marking its official launch as a "platform for Africans and Afrophiles worldwide" with, among other activities, an essay competition. They invite competitors to "pick and discuss" any or all of the following:

• My Greatest Life Challenge
  • An essay on your greatest life challenge or challenges
• My Best Adventure Story
  • Present your best adventure story ever
• I’m Going to Rant!
  • Just rant about an issue that bugs the living daylights out of you.

Check out the AfricanLoft site for more information, and start writing!

World Bank's Doing Business site just got better

The World Bank's excellent Doing Business site has just gotten better--it now features a link to a mash-up superimposing the familiar Doing Business indicators onto a map of the world, thanks to a new partnership with Google and Google maps.  One of the best benefits of this new partnership is the seamless integration of maps and databases, allowing you to bring up Doing Business data when you click on any of the balloons on the map.  The upgraded site also identifies the top 10 reformers for 2007, listing two African countries -- Ghana and Tanzania -- among them.  Rob Katz, over at NextBillion is right: What we have here is another "great example of how free and/or open-source technologies can be used to make the case for pro-business policy reforms.  And frankly, it just looks good and runs well.  You should check it out, bookmark it, and share it with your friends."

An easy way to find a domain

Next time i'm looking for a good domain, i know where to look: Bust a Name. At least until something better appears on my radar.  Bust a Name is an online service that helps you find good domains.  All you have to do is "know how to look."  i tried it out just now and the system generated a list of 9 available domain names from the four words that i entered ("power," "prestige," "solar" and "extra").  So, just like that i could have been the proud owner of "powerextra.org" or even "solarprestige.org" if i had been looking to buy a domain name right now.

Excellent video commercial about...well, watch it!

Thanks to Treehugger for sharing this superbly done video. Brace yourself--the message really knocks the wind out of you when it hits!

clipped from www.treehugger.com

Another fascinating look at global statistics

i have seen some great statistical graphics and tools in my time, but this collection of 300 globes from WORLDPROCESSOR is truly in a class of its own.  A very special class.  Though no where near as precise and flexible as the robust and beautiful Gapminder--which i first stumbled upon more than a year ago-- worldprocessor will keep you glued to your monitor for hours with its vast array of entertaining and informative representations of interesting statistics.  Well done!