Match a Maker is a great way of  helping each other, you can offer someone advice on design or technologies for example and perhaps gain advice or help on funding or mentorship. There are so many ways to ‘match’

At the live event in Ghana,  lots of matches were made, for example: a man working on biocarburant found a mentor to further develop his business model, an inventor needing AutoCad skills was linked with the FabLab in Ghana, a shea butter maker was linked with a fabricator for a new machine to do same, a local children’s community organisation was linked to FM radio sender makers and  a Ugandan man was linked to a mentor for developing his bicycle driven medical care service.

Now we want to continue this momentum online. So see if you can help ‘match’ people to take inventing and making to the next step.
We are also working on a fully fledged platform to support the same types of matching but then globally. We envisage liking this to a ‘Whuffie‘ type approach to reward people who match others. You can help us design and build this full platform, if you have suggestion are are willing to volunteer time to get this platform up,  running and connected please mail us

Patrica Temma Bio and friend - Emer's match @makerfairafrica

Pat Delany (L) makes a point at MFA09

Should be home by now but plane had engine trouble on takeoff.Better here than over the ocean in a 2 engine plane! Really big things have happened.A trade school will probably expand to other parts of the country and take the MM with it.An MIT lab is going to make and test the drill.People are going to make a “jungle” drill to make bolt holes to plank a bridge with wood that is so tough that nails just bounce off.Maker Faire Africa is sponsoring a country wide MultiMachine building contest.
A Nigerian venture capital guy is going to make my penetrating oil.I have been invited to join an American Association of Mechanical Engineers developing country group and maybe make a couple of speeches.And really big deal..I have started a program to provide African welders with better eye protection than the sun glasses they normally use. They often lose much of their sight after just a few years. The goal is to get the rod makers to provide filtering glass with boxes of rods. As it is now they are blinding their customers

Way to go Pat! Sourced from the MultiMachine user group

BBC Digital Planet podcast interview (starts around minute 13:00)

Recap of Maker Faire Africa 2009 – ICT4D.at

Maker Faire Africa ‘09 thrills – AfricaNews

Maker Faire Africa update – MAKE Magazine

Maker Faire Africa showcases ingenuity – Crossing the Streams blog

Interview with Emer Beamer and Emeka Okafor of Maker Faire team

Maker Faire Africa was interesting and exciting. My weekend couldn’t have been better spent. I met a lot of like minded people and and saw a lot of interesting things made locally I had never heard of. I also got the opportunity to met people I had only heard or read about like Henry Barnor and Erik Hersman, it was wonderful meeting them and all the other guys.

The following is a recap the 3 days event.

MFA day 1

Day 1 was launch of Maker Faire Africa, with a series of talks about the purpose and inspiration behind the Faire. Some key makers were introduced followed by a number of talk sessions by the makers. I was really inspired by William Kamkwamba session to be determined and self-motivated. Every maker that registered got a copy of Make magazine.

MFA day 2

Day 2 commenced exhibitions. MFA hosted several makers from windmill builders to cycle powered saws as well as guys from the tech industry such as low powered computer manufactures and crowdsourcing agencies. Mozilla’s desk attracted a lot of participants, from fans to swag seekers. Henry Addo (ushahidi.com), Miquel (maneno.org) and myself collaborated in a workshop (turned discussion) about localization. We discussed issues hindering localization efforts in Africa, and what policies are and need to be put in place to promote localization. It was an eye opener, hearing the participants’ concerns and sharing ideas. We shared packaged Mozilla swag after the discussion, it included a t-shirt, wrist bands, buttons and stickers.

The second workshop (also turned discussion) was lead by Erik Hersman who launched into a discussion about what he saw as a lack of communication and cohesion within the Ghanaian programming community (original topic was mapping on mobiles and web).

I had 2 guys man the stand, 2 interact with makers and participants and myself and another attend the workshop.

MFA day 3

The third day started slow considering it was a Sunday. The program line up had to be rescheduled. There were a number of simultaneous workshops of which we attended 2; mobile applications development by Henry Addo, and building SMS applications web development for low bandwidth regions by Miquel, Brian Herbert (Esoko) and Wayan Vota (Inveneo) .

Participants who expressed interest to be part of the Mozilla community had their contact taken, I will get back to them to find their interests then move them on from there. To round up the event there was a panel discussion with MFA organizers to evaluate the progress of the event and the future of the faire.

Maker Faire Africa is scheduled for Kenya next year, date and time will be communicated later. Awards were given to makers who’s exhibits were considered to be true representation of what maker faire ought to be, the first going to three guys from Accra Polytechnic for building an FM radio transmitter. I handed over the table cloth to Henry Barnor at the close of the program.

It was indeed interesting an weekend. My team and i are grateful to have such an opportunity to be part of the program representing Mozilla, thanks a million!

Kwamena Appiah-Kubi
KNUST
College of Science
Department of Computer Science
Computer Science 4
Kumasi – Ghana

• Maker Faire 2010 Nairobi, Kenya
• A build-a-MultiMachine prize
• An inaugural Maker prize to be launched at MFA 2010
• A Maker Directory for participants in MFA 2009

Please stay tuned to the MFA blog for further details on these and other exciting developments.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Maker Faire Africa update (makezine.com)
• A Taste of Maker Faire (timbuktuchronicles.blogspot.com)

Afrobotics goal:

“inspire African university students to be science, engineering, and technology leaders, by enabling them in innovative team-based competitions that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire entrepreneurial risk-taking, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership”

Here are some of the media and blogs that have been writing about Maker Faire Africa:

AfricaNews: Maker Faire Africa kicks off

BikeJuju: Maker Faire Africa features bicycle-related inventors, projects

The Ghanaian Chronicle via AllAfrica: Maker Faire Africa underway in Accra

Core77: Maker Faire Africa is on!

Wired: Maker Faire Africa

Mental Floss: Preview: Maker Faire Africa

Kent’s Diary: Maker Faire Africa kicks off in Ghana

ICT4D.at:
Afrika Maker Faire Accra, Friday: Introduction and sessions 1st part
Maker Faire Africa, Accra, Friday: sessions 2nd part

[from Afrigadget] Amy Smith (of MIT’s IDDS) somehow got a hold of a mic and madhouse has now ensued! Everyone has been split up by their birth month into groups. They are given 5 water bags (sachets) and told to solve the world’s greatest problems. 30 minutes later we get…

January: The Sachet Kebab
Decreasing litter and polution. People can collect water sachets off the ground easily with a pole and spiked end. It can be placed along the roads, and a lot of trash can just be spiked on the tip of it.

February: Hydro Electric
Generate electricity by using the bags to create small turbines.

March: Light absorbent and heat absorbent bags
They also had a crazy idea of drinking the water, peeing in the bag and selling that to farmers for fertilizer… to much laughter…

April: Potting and a Wallet
Drink the water and make it empty. Cut the top off and put in soil and grow small plants. Take another bag and put a small hole in it for drip irrigation. Second idea: use the bag to put your money in for when it rains.

Read more at Afrigadget.com. Follow updates on Twitter. ]]> http://makerfaireafrica.com/2009/08/14/water-sachet-design-challenge-thats-amy/feed/ 0