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

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

…all-purpose open source machine tool that can be built inexpensively by a semi-skilled mechanic with common hand tools, from discarded car and truck parts, using only commonly available hand tools and no electricity. Its size can range from being small enough to fit in a closet to one a hundred times that size. The MultiMachine can accurately perform all the functions of an entire machine shop by itself.

Lets think about this for a minute “an all purpose machine tool that…can accurately perform all the functions of an entire machine shop” built from discarded parts by semi-skilled mechanics (replace with,jua kali workers,suame magazine fabbers etc.) What may be missing? A power source of sorts with the necessary torque and availability even in the most rural of areas.Perhaps coupling it with a system like the multifunctional platform would solve that problem.

Can we now make the assumption that all the necessary pieces are available, albeit with the expected and necessary geographic/environmental adaption needed for individual installations? Admittedly it does seem somewhat more feasible, the task at hand is too envision methods of making such systems available to those in-need fabricators.Those who may argue against the bottom-up rudimentary approach should consider this.Contrary to the perceived wisdom a considerable number of machine parts are still made in small engineering workshops, where they ultimately provide the input for larger better known industrial behemoths even in uber-industrialized Japan. Maker Faire Africa with its commitment to embedding metal hacking far and wide will do its very best place to support this approach and others like it and have fun while doing so…