Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Episode 5: Interview With Kenyan School Children and News

I want to apologize in advance for this being a short episode. I had planned that the bulk of it would be taken up by my interview with the Kenyan school children. Unfortunately, we only got about 10 minutes into the interview before they lost internet access.

I also wasn't able to gather as many stories as I'd hope to this month. It seems like the more I look for something, the harder it is to find. 

Website for the Exodus Rescue Centre in Kenya





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Sunday, May 31, 2015

Episode 0004: Bonus Episode!

HELLO AND WELCOME TO 'BOOTSTRAPPING THE PLANET,' I'M YOUR HOST TUCKER AND THIS IS A MONTHLY PODCAST WHERE I COVER TECHNOLOGIES BEING USED TO IMPROVE LIVES IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD. FOR LINKS TO THE STORIES MENTIONED ON THE PODCAST, YOU CAN GO TO http://bootstrappingtheplanet.blogspot.com/ IF AT ALL POSSIBLE, I WILL TRY TO HAVE LINKS ACCOMPANING EACH STORY THAT PROVIDE INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO DO SOMETHING SIMILAR. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CRITICISMS, OR IF YOU'RE SOMEONE WHO WORKS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD AND WOULD LIKE TO TALK ABOUT YOUR WORK THERE, THE EMAIL FOR THE SHOW IS BOOTSTRAPPLANET@GMAIL.COM I'LL PUT THE EMAIL ADDRESS IN THE SHOWNOTES.

This is one of the long promised bonus episodes, I realize that for some of you, its already June, but here in the US its still May, so this counts as the bonus episode I promised to get out this month. Its a bit short as I'm low on storage space this month, but if all goes according to plan, the next episode will include an interview with the director and a student from The Exodus School in Kenya. http://www.erecs.org Its a school to educate children in a particularly impovereshed part of Kenya, where the prospects for children are rather bleak. I hope to make a monthly feature out of hearing from some of the children from the school to give people an idea what its like growing up in the developing world.

AGRICULTURE
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School Gardens Combat Hunger in Argentina

 In Argentina, where millions of families have unmet dietary needs despite the country’s vast expanse of fertile land, the Huerta Niño project promotes organic gardens in rural primary schools, to teach children healthy eating habits and show them that they can grow their own food to fight hunger.
Of the 105 students who board Monday through Friday at the La Divina Pastora rural school in Mar del Sur in the municipality of General Alvarado, 80 percent come from poor families.
“Ten percent have nutritional deficiencies, from their first year of life, even from the period of breastfeeding or even the pregnancy itself. We see calcium deficiency, which can lead to cavities and affects growth,” the school principal, Rita Darrechon, told Tierramérica.
The privately run public school, located 500 km southwest of the capital, serves children between the ages of six and 14, and a few older children who have repeated grades.
The children live in rural or semi-urban areas in the eastern province of Buenos Aires. But most of them were raised without any farming culture or knowledge about or tools for agriculture.
“In places that were historically farming areas, kids do not know what to do with the land,” the general coordinator of the Huerta Niño Foundation, Bárbara Kuss, told Tierramérica. “They don’t know that if they’re hungry, the seeds in their hand can feed them.”
The aim of the non-profit institution founded in 1999 by businessman Federico Lobert is to help reduce hunger among students in rural schools.
The initiative first began to take shape when Lobert, during a trip as a young man, heard a rural schoolteacher say “the kids couldn’t study because they hadn’t eaten anything except orange tree leaves to calm their stomachaches.”
He described this as a “sad paradox” in a country “that produces so much food for millions of people around the world.”
The gardens benefit 20,000 children in 270 rural schools in low-income areas, like La Divina Pastora. The vegetables and fruit they grow are eaten by the students in the school lunchroom.
“It seems like a really good opportunity to promote, together, a healthy diet, using natural resources that are within their reach,” said Darrechon.
According to the article, they combine working in the garden with other classes in the school, so its used not only to teach kids how to grow food, but things like math and science as well. The per school cost is about $4500, which isn't too bad, considering that it not only helps the kids eat better, but also teaches them many different things and in ways that they might not otherwise be exposed to.

It also seems to me that the kids will learn a great deal more, simply because they're DOING something, and not stuck in a classroom, learning by rote. As someone once said, “We learn by doing.”


Kenyans Attack Food Insecurity with Urban Farms and Sack Gardens

In the midst of one of Africa’s largest slums, vegetables are growing.
It began as a French initiative to support jobless youth after a spasm of post-election violence in 2008 – and feed them at the same time.
The ‘garden-in-a-sack’ concept, introduced by the NGO Solidarites International (http://www.solidarites.org/en/)0, makes it possible to grow food in small spaces and save money for other purchases. In Mathare, Kiambiu and Kibera slums, with close to 3 million inhabitants, Solidarités has brought sack-gardening to about 22,109 households, directly benefitting over 110,000 people.
The upright urban farms in Kibera consist of a series of sacks filled with manure, soil and small stones that enable water to drain. From the tops and sides of these sacks, referred to as multi-story gardens, Kibera farmers grow kale, spinach, onions, tomatoes, vegetables and arrowroot which sprout from the tops and sides.
Today, Kibera has thousands of sack gardens spread across 16 villages in the slum, according to Douglas Kangi, principal agricultural officer on the Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture Project at the Ministry of Agriculture.
Across Africa, informal growing operations are expected to become critical in the coming years. With a constant stream of people leaving the farms for the cities, the continent’s urban population is set to top 700 million by 2030 up from 400 million today and 53 million in 1960, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
If you'll remember, in the last episode, I covered a family in Los Angeles who was growing an impressive amount of food on a small city lot. Here's an example of folks doing something similar in the developing world. There's unfortunately no photographs with the article, so I can't say for certain how its done. This is an important project, since global warming and things like the recent ebola outbreak are making food supplies uncertain in many parts of Africa. The article says that several other African nations have started similar programs, but really, this needs to happen not only in every country in Africa, but in every nation on Earth. Far better for every person to have a surplus of food, than for one person to go hungry, I think, and the best way to ensure that everyone has enough to eat is to make sure that folks know how to grow their own food.

http://www.instructables.com/id/A-garden-in-a-sack/




HEALTH/MEDICINE

When Kenyan Children’s Lives Hang on a Drip

Acute watery diarrhoea is a major killer of young children but misunderstanding over the benefits of fluid treatment is preventing many Kenyan parents from resorting to this life-saving technique and threatening to reverse the strides that the country has made in child health.
The 2014 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, released in April this year, reports that the country’s under-five mortality rate fell to 52 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2014, down from the 74 deaths in 2008-09, but still far from the 32 per 1,000 live births targeted under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The primary treatment for acute watery diarrhoea is rehydration, administered intravenously in the most severe cases of very young children suffering from shock after losing excessively high quantities of body fluids. A fluid bolus – or rapid liquid dose – delivered directly through an intravenous drip allows a much faster delivery than oral rehydration.
However, notes nurse Esther Mayaka at the Jamii Clinic in Mathare, Nairobi, “parents of children brought to hospital with acute watery diarrhoea are refusing to have them put on [drip] fluid treatment and this is a major concern because diarrhoea is a leading killer among children and giving fluids is still the main solution.”
She told IPS that the ongoing rains and floods in many parts of the country “have created a comeback for diseases like cholera whose most telling sign is watery diarrhoea which needs to be managed with fluids.”
The article doesn't really give a clear explanation as to why parents refuse to allow their children to be given IV fluids, but it is an awfully inexpensive way to save a child's life. The cost of the bags of IV fluids is little more than a dollar, though in the US healthcare providers often charge an obscene amount of money for them. The Kenyan government is launching a new initiative to make sure that children suffering from diarrhea do get the fluids they need. Let's hope that its successful.



ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
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Solar Sisters: How This "Avon Lady" Model Of Solar Distribution Has Taken Off

Solar Sister is a social business that uses an "Avon Lady"-type model to distribute solar equipment in Africa. It's been operating for more than five years and now works with about 1,500 women entrepreneurs in three countries. The women buy solar lamps, solar phone chargers, and solar panels at cost, then mark up the items at retail, pocketing the difference. Solar Sister provides training and support, helping the saleswomen reach their goals.

As part of our new series checking in on projects we've written about in the past, we spoke with CEO Katherine Lucey. She talked about the challenges the company has faced in that time and how Solar Sister hopes to continue to grow.
Lucey founded the business on the premise that women are the family members most likely to use solar equipment. In Uganda, Tanzania, and Nigeria, they're the ones who currently buy kerosene for lighting and see that their kids have enough light at night to do homework. After that, it also seemed logical that the best people to sell to women would be other women.

According to the article, its not a perfect system. The women who sell the lights don't make enough money to have this be their full time job and the company itself relies more on the generosity of donors than it does on profits from sales. Still, providing such things can be a big aid in places like Uganda. They also hope to expand the program to two more countries in the next five years. I'll have a link to the organization's website in the show notes. http://www.solarsister.org



HIGH TECH
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Why This Clunky Zack Morris Phone Is Taking Over Ghana

It’s easy to think of something like the iPhone as the epitome of industrial design: a thin bit of beauty with alien curves equally capable of pinpointing your location in space or firing an email across the globe. And this intoxication with poetic industrial design leads to a dangerous bit of thinking—that if iPhones were cheap enough, they’d take over emerging markets like India and Africa.

But as Emmanuel Quartey—head of product at the African tech school MEST—explains on Medium, he’s spotted a new phone that’s taking over Ghana. It’s a brandless, unadvertised, brick of a handset that can barely run Facebook and Whatsapp; and yet, his tech-savvy friends who own smartphones are being wooed to it.

The secret of the black brick phone, he reasons, is that it includes a huge battery which also functions as a powerbank. Five and a half times larger than the battery in an iPhone 6, it can charge people’s devices in a region where frequent blackouts have left people without power for upwards of 36 hours. To sweeten the deal, it also includes an FM radio and an LED flashlight.
His conclusions? Smartphones with week-long batteries could penetrate emerging markets better than any other idea Silicon Valley’s got. And "distinctive trumps pretty." Even if the power bank phone is ugly, you can’t ignore it.
It is one ugly phone, but it does have a big battery in it. 10,000 milliamp hours. He doesn't say how long the phone lasts between charges, but I have long complained about the obsession with making phones as thin and light as possible. I'd much rather have a slightly thicker and heavier phone, if it meant that I was able to get significantly longer battery life out of the device. This appears to not only have a long battery life, but is powerful enough to charge other devices as well. One hopes that the success of this device in Africa convinces smartphone manufacturers to give up on the thinner is better mantra they've been obsessed with, and start making phones with bigger batteries.



TRANSPORTATION
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Modular Cargo Bikes With Unusual Steering Mechanisms

As their name implies, XYZ Cargo cycles are built on a Cartesian grid.  They're intended to be easy to put together, easy to repair and easy to customize.  Unlike traditional three-wheeled cargo cycles, the XYZ CARGO features a so called Ackermann-steering, which is usually only to be found in cars. This makes the XYZ CARGO easy to control even at high speeds and the maneuverability under heavy loads stays smooth.

The designs are made with square-tubing, but I think they could be easily adapted to round tubing, wood, or bamboo. There's no mention of how much the bikes cost, nor are there any detailed plans on their site, but they are looking for partners to help produce the bikes, and these would be a huge help in the developing world, since bicycles are often the most common form of transportation, and these are better adapted to carrying things than are conventional bicycle designs. I'll have links in the show notes to the group's website, along with a link to the article talking about the bikes. http://www.n55.dk/MANUALS/SPACEFRAMEVEHICLES/spaceframevehicles.html






THAT'S IT FOR THIS EPISODE OF BOOTSTRAPPING THE PLANET. FOR LINKS TO THE STORIES COVERED IN THIS, OR ANY OTHER EPISODE, ALONG WITH A LINK TO THE EMAIL ADDRESS, YOU CAN GO TO http://bootstrappingtheplanet.blogspot.com/ THE EMAIL FOR THE SHOW IS BOOTSTRAPPLANET@GMAIL.COM THE ITUNES COVER ART FOR THE PODCAST IS BY STEVE AT HUDSON MEDIA IN COLUMBUS, OH. NOW, LET'S ALL GO MAKE THIS PLANET A BETTER PLACE.
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Sunday, May 10, 2015

Episode 0003: Bright Lights, Big Donations

HELLO AND WELCOME TO 'BOOTSTRAPPING THE PLANET,' I'M YOUR HOST TUCKER AND THIS IS A MONTHLY PODCAST WHERE I COVER TECHNOLOGIES BEING USED TO IMPROVE LIVES IN THE DEVOPLING WORLD. FOR LINKS TO THE STORIES MENTIONED ON THE PODCAST, YOU CAN GO TO http://bootstrappingtheplanet.blogspot.com/ IF AT ALL POSSIBLE, I WILL TRY TO HAVE LINKS ACCOMPANING EACH STORY THAT PROVIDE INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO DO SOMETHING SIMILAR. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CRITICISMS, OR IF YOU'RE SOMEONE WHO WORKS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD AND WOULD LIKE TO TALK ABOUT YOUR WORK THERE, THE EMAIL FOR THE SHOW IS BOOTSTRAPPLANET@GMAIL.COM I'LL PUT THE EMAIL ADDRESS IN THE SHOWNOTES.

This will be the first of what I hope, if the good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise, of two episodes this month, to make up for the fact that I missed putting out the second episode that I promised last month. It all depens upon my work schedule, which is rather volitile right now.


DESIGN
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THIS IS A BIT OF A GRAB BAG SEGMENT WHERE I COVER ITEMS WHICH DON'T EASILY FIT INTO THE OTHER SEGMENTS.


Need a Mechanism for Your Design? Here's the Motherlode

Let's say you're a designer trying to create something with moving parts: A set of double doors that open in an unusual way, a console that deploys a hidden flatscreen monitor, or a space-saving cabinet with panels that slide sideways rather than swing out. Where do you start?


There are companies that make hardware to achieve these things, but there's no guarantee that hardware is sized to fit your application. If you can understand how the mechanisms work, however, you can create something to custom fit your design.


That's where this retired mechanical engineer comes in: Nguyen Duc Thang has made it his mission to illustrate mechanisms so people can understand them. Using Autodesk Inventor, he creates succinct 3D animations of various mechanical mechanisms, and staggeringly, he's created 1,700 videos of them to date.

This is a huge boon for anyone wanting to build something. The videos clearly show how the mechanisms work, and he doesn't concentrate simply on complex designs, but also shows fairly simple ones as well. Nor do they necessarily require complex tools to make. Many of them can be made with ordinary hand tools.


SANITATION
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This story comes from fastcoexist.com and is similar to the floating toilet story I mentioned last month. http://www.fastcoexist.com/3044491/these-floating-islands-arent-real-but-they-are-cleaning-up-rivers

These Floating Islands Aren't Real—But They Are Cleaning Up Rivers

While intensive farming has delivered a lot of cheap food to America, it's also delivered a lot of pollution. The nation's 330 million acres of agricultural land are filled with enormous quantities of phosphorus and nitrogen fertilizer, some of which ends up in nearby waterways. The Environmental Protection Agency says more than half the nation's rivers and streams are now in "poor biological condition" as a result.

Bruce Kania's solution: recreate natural wetlands that can help purify the water and bring it back to life. Over the last decade, his Montana company Floating Islands Internationalhas built more than 6,000 "biohavens" that are now quietly rejuvenating waterways across the country. And that's just the start. Some of his floating clean-up platforms now approach the size of football fields, and he's working on structures that could bobble in the ocean one day as well.
"We try and bio-mimic the patterns that nature employs," he says.
The islands are designed to grow "biofilms"—collections of microbes that consume the excessive nutrients in the water. Each platform is made up of a matrix of fibers derived from post-consumer plastic bottles, then infused with a buoyant marine foam. The plants on top, mostly perennials, grow in a peat layer. The biofilms congregate on the bottom of the structure, while roots from the plants peep through, offering additional pollution control.

The article doesn't say how many of the islands he's built, but mentions that 24 of them are nearly 2,000 square meters in size, with one being over 4,000 square meters. And while he seems to be only interested in building them in America, they could easily be constructed in any place in the world to help improve water quality. They could also be used for growing some types of food crops, which would aid in sustainable farming efforts. In places where there was high fertilizer run off in the ater supply, there'd be no need to fertilize the crops at all. Additionally, such islands can increase habitats for fish in the river, so that adds to the potential food available to people. Finally, they can lower the temperature of the water in the river. This is important, as global warming is causing rivers to warm up, which can harm fish, but cause problems for power generating plants that use the water for cooling. If the water's too hot, then they have to shut the plant down, or run at reduced capacity.

From gizmag.com we have this toilet design. http://www.gizmag.com/blue-diversion-closed-system-toilet/31198/

Blue Diversion toilet is flushed with success

Two years ago, an off-grid closed-system toilet known as the Diversion won an award at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Reinventing the Toilet" fair. Created by the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) and now called the Blue Diversion, it recently also won the title of Most Innovative Project (Europe/West Asia), as bestowed by the International Water Association. So, what makes it so special? Well, for one thing, the same water that flushes it is subsequently used in its hand-washing sink.

Here's how the Blue Diversion works ...
Feces, urine, and flush water are separated right below the toilet bowl. The first two items are then stored in sealed compartments, for subsequent use as fertilizer. The water, because it's used more to rinse out the bowl than to actually transport the waste, isn't as contaminated as what goes down a regular toilet's pipes. It's still pretty disgusting, though, so it's pumped into a filtration system in the back wall of the setup.
There, it passes through a bioreactor that neutralizes organic matter and ammonia, along with an ultrafiltration membrane that blocks pathogenic organisms such as bacteria and viruses. Any remaining trace amounts of organic matter and ammonia are then neutralized by an electrolysis unit, which also produces chlorine to disinfect the water.
From there, gravity carries the water down to be used in the sink, in a bidet-style shower head, or to rinse out the bowl once again. According to Eawag, the same water is good for about 50 uses per day. Power for the pumps, electrolysis unit and electronics are provided by a top-mounted photovoltaic panel.
Personally, I'm not a huge fan of these high tech designs, since they can breakdown, or require filters which have to be periodically changed or replaced. Still, for $500, its more economical than some of the other designs I've seen.

AGRICULTURE
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LEARN HOW THIS FAMILY GROWS 6,000 LBS OF FOOD ON JUST 1/10TH ACRE

The Dervaes family live on 1/10th of an acre 15 minutes from downtown L.A.. In itself that’s not strange. What’s crazy is that they manage to maintain a sustainable and independent urban farm. Complete with animals!
In a year they produce around 4,300 pounds of veggies, 900 chicken , 1000 duck eggs, 25 lbs honey, and pounds of seasonal fruit. There are over 400 species of plants. What?! They have everything they need to ‘live off the land.’ From beets to bees. Chickens to chickpeas.
What the family doesn’t eat they sell from their porch, making around $20,000 a year. Local organic food is so popular that they don’t have any problems finding customs. Even chefs from restaurants seek them out.
The article title is a bit of a misnomer, since you don't really get any more details than that, but based on the video at the link, I think its fairly easy to figure out what they're doing. They're obviously using the square foot gardening method pioneered by Mel Bartholomew http://squarefootgardening.org/ and Will Allen's Growing Power method. http://www.growingpower.org/ Both of which are designed to be able to grow large amounts of food in a very small space. There's a video at the site which gives a bit more information about the family's methods, and the $20K figure for their income is a bit of a red herring. They're able to make that much money from what they grow, due to the fact that locally grown organic food is a big fad in Los Angeles and commands premium prices. Were they to be located in say, some place like Iowa or Nebraska, they probably couldn't make nearly as much money, as the demand for organic food isn't as great there. Additionally, the family's lacto-ovo vegetarians, and if they were to expand their diet to include things like fish, they could produce even more food on their small lot using a farm fountain, which is a hydroponic system that circulates water through a fish tank filled with tilapia or similar fish before using it to water the plants. http://farmfountain.com/

It might seem as if this isn't applicable to people in developing nations, but the methods do grow a large amount of food in a small amount of space, with no need for tractors, combines, and the like. It should be fairly easy to adapt them to local conditions in the developing world and provide greater food security for the people in those areas.


Dew Collector: Greenhouse for food growth, water


In Ethiopia, the University of Gondar's Faculty of Agriculture is actively involved in real-life problems that are familiar to many farmers on the continent. The university is pursuing research as well as development efforts and toward that end has entered links with an organization called Roots Up. The latter says it will build a workshop on the campus for farmers living nearby and facing tough issues and harsh living conditions. The organization said the center will be made out of "Earthbags."
They call the structure the "Ecodome," and the workshops will focus on such topics as water management and soil conservation. At the end of the day, Roots Up wants to accomplish a mission of helping to make the University of Gondar an "innovation hub for low-tech and low-cost solutions that can be developed on a larger scale in the rural areas of North Gondar." One project on the agenda is a "green" shelter for dew harvest. On Friday, Discovery News reported on a Roots Up-University of Gondar initiative called the Dew Collector greenhouse. This is a low-cost, low-tech greenhouse wherevegetables can grow despite drought conditions.
It works at collecting dew by capturing evaporation in bio-plastic sheeting at the top of the dome.
Inhabitat said that in using this collector, farmers can raise protected plants and yield clean water both for both irrigation and drinking. Instead of just performing as a greenhouse, the structure also serves as rainwater collector, ensuring that raindrops are stored.
Inhabitat said the organization plans to launch the Dew Collector greenhouses in Northern Ethiopia, in conjunction with the university. "The Dew Collector is just one part of the company's mission to help create a self-reliant farming community in Northern Ethiopia."

Essentially, its an 8-sided pyramid, which acts as a combination air well and greenhouse. The illustrations which accompany the article, don't really give an indication of the size of a Dew Collector. It might be that they're planning on building them in several different sizes. One thing that they could do, which I think would be a huge boon for them is to have a program where not only do they train locals in how to make the Dew Collectors, but offer them for sale to Westerners, since with the drought worries in California and the explosion of the local food movement there, they'd probably find a number of eager customers. This would not only help boost the economy in Ethiopia, but also give locavores a warm fuzzy feeling that they were doing something good.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
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iShack delivers power (and television) to the people

In 2011, the National Research Foundation funded the research and training of postgraduate students, through Stellenbosch University’s TsamaHUB (Transdisciplinary Sustainability Analysis, Modelling and Assessment Hub). A cash injection of $250?000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation allowed the Sustainability Institute to develop the technological and funding model and upgrade about 100 shacks. In 2013, the iShack project received 17-million Rand from the government’s Green Fund, with a target to supply electricity to 1?500 households.

Now many shacks in Enkanini have solar panels on their roofs. Inside each of these shacks is a distribution box, the length of an outstretched arm, with wire casings leading out of it to two lights, an external security light, a cellphone charger and a television set.

All of this is provided by Specialized Solar Solutions in George, using its DC micro-grid technologies. The company produces “small, stand-alone, off-grid solar home systems that can provide a scalable amount of electricity”, Conway says.

Swilling, who is also head of sustainable development at Stellenbosch University’s School of Public Leadership, emphasises that the equipment does not belong to the shack dweller: “We don’t want to sell equipment. Users treat it as infrastructure … the solar panel … is part of the [township’s infrastructure], like your road, pylons, cables. They don’t belong to you, but without them you wouldn’t get services.”

And for 150 Rand a month, the user has access to electricity. A SIM card in the distribution box allows the project to control the energy access remotely, and switch it off if a user does not pay or defaults on his or her monthly payments.

Conway reiterates that the iShack is “not a house or product, or even just an energy service”. “It is an attempt to develop a sustainable social enterprise model for delivering affordable, incremental services to residents of informal settlements.”

For those of you wondering, 150 Rand, works out to about $12.50 US, at present exchange rates. The article has a really indepth discussion about the program, why they chose to include a TV, along with a pair of lights, how they're planning on expanding the project, and more.

I, personally, don't like the idea that the people who have the systems installed in their shacks never own the systems, but are perpetually renting them from the company. The argument for them doing this is that it pays for the expansion of the project to other places, and covers the cost of mainence and repair, all of which may be true, but I grew up in America at a time when you didn't own the phone in your house, you rented it from the phone company. Their argument was much the same, this allowed them to make improvements to the phone system, ensured the quality of phone calls, and so on. Yet, we didn't really see a proliferation of phone technology in the US until after the phone company was broken up. Then we bagan to see improvements and lower costs. I realize that the two situations aren't really comparable, but I worry that this could be enslaving people to pay for something which they don't need to.


A Crowdfunding Site Lets You Bring Energy Efficiency To Poor Neighborhoods

 Donnel Baird and his team have put together BlocPower, a social business that gathers together inefficient buildings into more attractive packages. It then finds the money from impact investors who get a decent return, though not a spectacular one.
"Because the buildings are older and the owners don't have access to capital to maintain them, they spend more on energy per square foot than other similar sized buildings in more affluent areas," says Baird. "A lot of people look at our business and say, 'Oh, you should be a charity case.' But, because our clients spend so much more money on energy, there is actually more savings to be made and more profit to be shared."
BlocPower looks for projects where it's possible to save at least 20% on a client's energy bills by installing solar panels, boilers, doors, windows, and lighting. Those kinds of projects aren't uncommon. The business saved one church in Brooklyn 30%, or $3,000 a month. Another community center in Staten Island saved 70%. BlocPower subsidizes the work, then owners pay back the money over a five year term. BlocPower then shares the savings—or profit—between the client, the investors and itself.

Now, this program is obviously designed for people in the US, but I'd think that it should be easy enough to adapt it to helping people in the developing world. Not only would it bring electricity to people who presently don't have access to it, but with a crew made up of local villagers, it could give people skills they need to get a better job.


Electricity-free Groundfridge lets you store perishables without traditional refrigeration

It’s easy to forget how much energy it takes to keep our food fresh. So imagine taking advantage of the earth’s natural underground insulation to store and keep your vegetables. Weltevree, a Dutch design company created by Floris Schoonderbeek, specializes in products made to encourage people to take advantage of natural and outdoor living. Their Groundfridge is a modern take on the familiar root cellar concept, allowing you to keep your produce fresh without traditional refrigeration.

The Groundfridge is similar to a traditional root cellar, and it is part of a concept meant to encourage the modern homeowner to grow and store their own produce for a modern self-sufficient existence. The Groundfridge uses the insulating effect of soil and the cooling effect of groundwater. The temperature in the fridge remains stable year-round between 10 and 12° C (50 to 54° F), which is the ideal temperature for storing fruits, vegetables, wine and cheese.

This is a somewhat high tech idea, and there's no mention of the price. Basically, its a large fiberglass tube with a ball on the lower end. There's steps cut into the tube to make it easy to go in and out of it, and the door appears to seal tightly.

A more compact, and less expensive design, which works under similar principles is the zeer pot.

This is simply two large clay pots, with one nestled inside the other, and a thick layer of sand between them. You saturate the sand with water, and as the water evaporates, it cools the pots down to help preserve food.

I'll have links in the shownotes to sites dealing with making your own zeer pots, and for a group supplying them to people in the developing world.





GoSol could be the key to no-cost solar heat around the world
Imagine a world where everybody could harness free and powerful energy from the sun with local materials. Solar Fire Concentration Ltd (SFCO) hopes to help supply solar thermal energy to alleviate energy poverty around the world, with a little help from crowdfunding. The Finnish company has launched the Free The Sun campaign, which will help to build their GoSol solar concentrators around the world. Rather than creating solar energy for electricity, the concentrators will power solar thermal devices, giving usable heat energy to anyone in off-the-grid areas, without using pollution-causing charcoal and wood.

Although using photovoltaic panels to generate solar energy is a great sustainable source, SFCO recognizes that most rural and poverty-stricken areas around the world are not even equipped to utilize the electricity the panels can produce. What is more useful is solar thermal energy, which can be used for cooking, heating, distilling water or powering steam engines. That realization led to the development of the GoSol concentrator.

They're attempting to raise $68,000, and so far, they've only manage to raise about 10% of that. It is a really interesting idea, and I like that they mention it could be used to power steam engines. We tend to look down on steam engines, because we've switched to gasoline, diesel, and electric motors, but a steam engine has one big advantage over them, in that it doesn't care what you use to heat the water. As long as you get the water hot enough, it'll run. So if a source of fuel becomes cheaper than the one you're presently using becomes cheaper, you can easily switch over to the cheaper fuel. Additionally, a steam engine can run cleaner than a conventional gas or diesel engine without pollution controls. Jay Leno had the emissions tested on one of his steam powered cars, and it easily passed California's emission laws, which are the strictest in the US.  Article on Leno's steam car: http://tinyurl.com/kpotv76

The one downside to what they're doing is that it doesn't look like they're going to actually make and distribute the devices, merely design them, and give away the plans. Which is nice, but they're talking about parts for it being made on CNC machines and 3D printers, items which aren't exactly common in many parts of the world. Still, they mention building the machines using locally sourced materials, so it might be that they're going to be providing two different designs, one which can be made out of items commonly found in developing nations, and one which can be built using factory made parts, that aid agencies could bring in and set up.


Help kickstart this little SolarPuff lantern that could save the world



the SolarPuff is an ingenious origami lantern with the power to revolutionize our world. The portable, solar-powered light delivers instant illumination where there is no electricity, coming to the rescue in emergency situations and serving as an economical off-grid lighting solution for the developing world. A staggering 1.6 billion people around the world lack access to electricity, many of whom use kerosene for lighting, which leads to fires and poor indoor air quality. The SolarPuff co-founders want to shift this reliance on dirty fuels to light the homes of people living off the grid with a cleaner, greener alternative. Read on to find out how you can help this important product reach its crowdfunding goal!
The ingenious creation was originally developed in the Columbia University Architecture Lab by Solight co-founder Alice Min Soo Chun after a aiding an earthquake emergency relief in Haiti. The ‘light bulb’ went on when Alice realized that a more sustainable lighting solution for disaster relief was needed. The SolarPuff’s modern flat packed design created “a critical distinction for transforming poverty into dignity.”


At just 2.5 ounces, this cute little lantern is designed with a sustainable and high-performance fabric made especially for durability, flexibility, adaptability and recyclability. The SolarPuff is able to float, with water resistant capabilities to withstand complete underwater immersion. It will produce light for an equal amount of time that it takes to charge in the sun. Its utility is so immense not only for the developing world and disaster zones, but for anyone traveling, camping, hiking, or needing a flashlight.
The unit looks like a collapsable white plastic bag and is about the size of your hand. They were asking for $25K on Kickstarter, and at the time of this recording, they'd managed to raise nearly $300K. They have a “Buy One Give One” donation level, where you give them $50, they'll send you a lantern, and donate one to either a school in Haiti or send one to Nepal. Given the photos I've seen of the destruction in Nepal, they could certainly use as many of these as they can possibly get.


HIGH TECH
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From fastcoexist.com we have this story about helping people to communicate during a disaster situation: http://www.fastcoexist.com/3045723/in-a-disaster-this-device-lets-people-communicate-without-a-cell-signal-wi-fi-or-power

In A Disaster, This Device Lets People Communicate Without A Cell Signal, Wi-Fi, Or Power

In the wake of the massive earthquake in Nepal, as power went out, cell towers crumbled, and internet connections disappeared, a few people turned to ham radio to send messages about missing victims.

A team of Danish designers argue that they have a better solution for communication in disasters: A simple solar-powered device that uses a mesh network to send signals person to person even if phone lines and power are cut.

"Nepal is another tragic example of how natural disasters often damage the regular communication lines and power lines, affecting the response and relief coordination," say designers Pernille Skjødt and Ida Stougaard, whose device, called Reachi, was a finalist in this year's Global Social Venture Competition. "Once the regular communication lines and power lines are damaged, it is difficult to establish an overview of a disaster. Early information can improve the planning and prioritization of relief for a more effective response, and potentially save lives."

"Each volunteer will own and carry his or her own device," the designers explain. "As each device creates a link, the volunteers are able to communicate through each other. This way, a signal is guaranteed, without the need of vulnerable, physical structures."

A simple interface on Reachi asks volunteers to enter basic information, like how many families need food, or how many injured victims need medical care. All of that data is instantly sent to a central headquarters, where it's displayed visually on a map and planners can make better decisions about where to send aid first.

The device is roughly the same size and shape as the original Apple iPod, and is rugged enough to survive being submurged in water or dropped. Information in a disaster situation is often the most important thing in helping people to survive, and this looks to be a great way to help get information out of a disaster area. They're planning on testing the device in the Phillipines this year, due to the fact that the country is struck by an average of 30 natural disasters each year.

I really wish that more people would promote the growth of MESH networks, as they offer an economical way of expanding communication access without the kind of infrastructure used in the developed nations. I know in parts of India they have a MESH network that's connected to the bus system, so that as a bus pulls into a village it connects to all the devices in range, and downloads information to them that it picked up when it was in an area with internet access.

Even in a developed nation like the US, MESH networks would be handy to have. Because there's a derth of internet providers where I live, I'm forced to use a provider which has spotty service, meanwhile, less than a mile down the road, the town square has open internet access, with an inexpenisve MESH network, I could tap into the open wifi on the square and use that while I was waiting for my ISP to come out and fix my problem. Assuming they can be bothered to show up at all. http://www.brck.com/

TRANSPORTATION
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jessica fulford-dobson tells the story of skate girls of kabul

for the series ‘skate girls of kabul’, british photographer jessica fulford-dobson tells the remarkable story of afghan girls who have taken up skateboarding, shot on location in afghanistan’s capital. here, young girls from poor and displaced families are being taught and encouraged to skateboard by skateistan, an afghan NGO charity that provides skate parks as an incentive to get children from disadvantaged families back into school.

Not mentioned in this story, and I can't find the one which discussed it, but the girls have taken to skateboards because they're prohibited from riding bicycles under Afghanistan law. Not only do they ride them at the skate park, but they use them to get around town. And while skateboards aren't as versitile as a bicycle, it strikes me that it isn't a bad way to get around faster than walking. Skateboards could also be a cheaper means of transportation than a bicycle, and they do make versions which are designed to work in unpaved areas, so the lack of roads needn't limit their use.


THAT'S IT FOR THIS EPISODE OF BOOTSTRAPPING THE PLANET. FOR LINKS TO THE STORIES COVERED IN THIS, OR ANY OTHER EPISODE, ALONG WITH A LINK TO THE EMAIL ADDRESS, YOU CAN GO TO http://bootstrappingtheplanet.blogspot.com/ THE EMAIL FOR THE SHOW IS BOOTSTRAPPLANET@GMAIL.COM THE ITUNES COVER ART FOR THE PODCAST IS BY STEVE AT HUDSON MEDIA IN COLUMBUS, OH. NOW, LET'S ALL GO MAKE THIS PLANET A BETTER PLACE.


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Sunday, April 5, 2015

Episode 0002 Is There Anyone Out There?

BOOTSTRAPPING THE PLANET NEWS 


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HELLO AND WELCOME TO 'BOOTSTRAPPING THE PLANET,' I'M YOUR HOST TUCKER AND THIS IS A MONTHLY PODCAST WHERE I COVER TECHNOLOGIES BEING USED TO IMPROVE LIVES IN THE DEVOPLING WORLD. FOR LINKS TO THE STORIES MENTIONED ON THE PODCAST, YOU CAN GO TO http://bootstrappingtheplanet.blogspot.com/  AUDIO FOR THE PODCAST CAN BE FOUND HERE: http://bootstrap.libsyn.com/ OR IN ITUNES.  IF AT ALL POSSIBLE, I WILL TRY TO HAVE LINKS ACCOMPANING EACH STORY THAT PROVIDE INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO DO SOMETHING SIMILAR. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CRITICISMS, OR IF YOU'RE SOMEONE WHO WORKS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD AND WOULD LIKE TO TALK ABOUT YOUR WORK THERE, THE EMAIL FOR THE SHOW IS BOOTSTRAPPLANET@GMAIL.COM I'LL PUT THE EMAIL ADDRESS IN THE SHOWNOTES. MY APOLOGIES FOR NOT GETTING THIS EPISODE OUT SOONER, BUT LAST MONTH WAS A RATHER HECTIC ONE FOR ME, AND RIGHT AS I WAS SETTLING DOWN TO PUT THIS EPISODE TOGETHER, I MANAGED TO BREAK A TOOTH. THANKS TO THE STUPIDITY OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL SYSTEM (OR RATHER, LACK OF A SYSTEM), I SPENT A GOOD THREE DAYS CURLED UP IN A BALL BECAUSE IT HURT TOO MUCH TO DO ANYTHING AT ALL. TO MAKE UP FOR NOT PUTTING OUT AN EPISODE LAST MONTH, I'LL BE PUTTING OUT TWO EPISODES THIS MONTH.


HOUSING
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THIS SECTION IS WHERE I COVER STORIES OF LOW-COST HOUSING EFFORTS AND DESIGN.

THIS STORY ISN'T REALLY HOUSING RELATED, BUT IT DETAILS AN IMPROVED DESIGN FOR SAW HORSES WHICH CAN BE EASILY MADE IN A FEW MINUTES, WITH LITTLE MORE THAN A COUPLE OF 2x4 BOARDS AND SOME BOLTS. IT COMES FROM CORE77.COM http://www.core77.com/blog/tools/the_shopdog_a_high_school_woodshop_teachers_simple_flexible_versatile_diy_sawhorse_design_28219.asp

An unnamed high school woodshop teacher in New Mexico, who goes by the alias of "Woodshop Dude," calls his sawhorse design the Shopdog. The design criteria was: Easy and cheap to make, flexible in what it can hold, whether materials, clamps or tools, easy and quick to set up, and has to be able to fold flat to stow on the wall of his shop.

THEY'VE GOT A VIDEO OF THE GUY DEMONSTRATING THE SAWHORSE, AND A LINK TO WHERE YOU CAN BUY THE PLANS FOR $5. HONESTLY, ITS A SIMPLE ENOUGH DESIGN THAT YOU COULD FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN JUST FROM WATCHING THE VIDEO, BUT FOR $5, ITS WORTH IT TO BUY THE PLANS.

http://www.woodshopdude.com

NEXT, I DONT' HAVE A NEWS STORY ABOUT THIS, BUT I FOUND A SITE WHICH HAS FREE BLUEPRINTS FOR TINY HOUSE DESIGNS. THEY MAY NOT BE PRACTICAL IF YOU'RE IN AN AREA WHERE YOU DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO COMMERCIALLY PRODUCED LUMBER, BUT THEY STILL COULD BE USEFUL FOR GIVING PEOPLE IDEAS. THEY HAVE BOTH SINGLE STORY AND TWO-STORY DESIGNS, AND THEY'RE ALL UNDER 500 SQUARE METERS. http://www.thesmallhousecatalog.com/freeshare/

THIS NEXT STORY COMES FROM DESIGNBOOM.COM, AND WHILE IT CERTAINLY WOULDN'T WORK AS A LONG TERM SHELTER, IT HAS POSSIBILITIES AS A TEMPORARY EMERGENCY SHELTER MADE FROM SCAVENGED MATERIALS. http://www.designboom.com/architecture/earth-lander-andrew-02-26-2015/

earth lander provides low cost, efficient housing for those in need

the ‘earth lander’ is an attempt to provide an economical solution for those in need by combining ready-made items with architectural thinking. an affordable, effective homeless shelter; the form uses inter-connected umbrellas to create a geodesic dome. the design is efficient spatially and thermally, and the objects create a structurally secure water and wind-resistant skin. air-filled garbage bags and a space blanket lining help to insulate and retain heat resulting in an internal space that is completely protected and sealed from exterior conditions.

THERE'S NO HOW-TO INSTRUCTIONS, BUT THE PHOTOS ARE DETAILED ENOUGH THAT SOMEONE COULD FIGURE OUT HOW TO BUILD ONE JUST BY USING THEM.


earth home project encourages locals to rebuild architecture of pakistan

‘earth home project‘ asks the question of what architecture can do to help defend against the very-growing problems people in developing countries have to face. the scheme started back in 2011 in pakistan with the aim of trying to help rebuild houses that had been destroyed during the flood of 2010. a land area of 160,000 km² (nearly 20% of the country) was hit. the poorest regions were the ones most badly struck. 15 million people were affected and 6 million people lost their homes. for most of them it is strictly impossible to erect their houses on their own because they lack the necessary means to do so.

the initiative helps residents rediscover traditional building techniques, while insuring improvements made to the design contribute to the stability and sustainability of the construction. the project therefore focuses on using local materials that can easily be procured by anyone; mud and lime are used as bricks, insulating and binding material, as well as bamboo for the flat-roof structures. the process is assisted by skilled craftsmen in order to share the necessary know-how. the hope is that this will enable the community to be more prepared against future natural disasters and to be able to rely on their neighbors and their abilities even if the economy is pushing them towards the margins. so far the endeavor has been able to help raise 121 homes around the area of multan, which had been very badly affected by the flood due to its position in the indus river basin.

THE ARTICLE HAS A NUMBER OF PHOTOS SHOWING NOT ONLY A COMPLETED HOUSE, BUT THE CONSTRUCTION PROCESS OF IT AS WELL. IT HAS SORT OF A CASTLE LIKE APPEARANCE, AND WHILE THEY USE BRICKS AND CEMENT TO CONSTRUCT THE BUILDING, I'D SAY THE EARTHBAGS TECHNOLGY I DESCRIBED IN THE PREVIOUS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST WOULD WORK AS WELL WITH THAT PARTICULAR DESIGN.



SANITATION
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Ecological Latrines Catch on in Rural Cuba

Most people in Cuba without toilets use the traditional outhouse. But an innovative, ecological alternative is catching on in remote rural communities.
So far 85 dry latrines have been installed in eastern Cuba – the poorest part of the country – thanks to the support of the non-governmental ecumenical Bartolomé G. Lavastida Christian Centre for Service and Training (CCSC-Lavastida) based in Santiago de Cuba, 847 km from Havana, which carries out development projects in this region.
“Over 70 percent of these toilets are in San Agustín, a town in the province of Santiago de Cuba. The rest are in Boniato and the municipality of Santiago de Cuba, in that same province; and in Caney, Babiney and Bayamo, in the province of Granma,” CCSC’s head of social projects, César Parra, told IPS.
Dry composting latrines separate urine from feces. The latter is used to produce fertiliser. They prevent the proliferation of disease-spreading vectors and the contamination of nearby sources of water, unlike the classic pit latrines that abound in the Cuban countryside.
“In eastern Cuba, we replicated the pioneering work of the Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation for Nature and Man (FANJ),” said Parra, a veterinarian, during an exchange on permaculture among farmers in the region, held in the town of Babiney, in the province of Granma.


CLOSER RELATED TO THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY SHIT PROJECT I COVERED IN THE PREVIOUS EPISODE, BUT MORE PERMANENT IN ITS DESIGN IS THE GREEN TOILET PROJECT WHICH COMES TO US IN THIS STORY FROM DESIGNBOOM.COM http://www.designboom.com/architecture/osa-social-design-group-dick-olango-green-toilet-project-02-08-2015/

dick olango plans green toilet project as symbol of sustainability

lixil corporation, a leading housing building and appliances manufacturer in japan, commissioned the creation of the green toilet project. based on a fusion of old and new technology, dick olango of OSA social design group has developed the construct as a squat toilet. in addition, it is non-flushing, all natural, and allows for separation of the excrements to be used as fertilizers.

the design also fulfills the need to supply and educate the local community about sustainability. while built-in mechanisms grant 100% rainwater collection, plants are embedded into the framework to add to the aesthetic and provide food. the interior is filled with natural ventilation and lighting. according to olango, ‘this is where kids can spend a majority of their free time, especially girls. girls normally do miss roughly four days per month because of the menstrual period, which accounts for a great loss in the amount of education they receive.’

IT DOESN'T HAVE THE SLIDES OR PERFORMANCE STAGE, LIKE THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY SHIT PROJECT, BUT IT IS MADE OUT OF BRICK AND CINDER BLOCKS, SO ITS MORE DURABLE THAN THE PALLET BASED DESIGN OF THE HOLY SHIT CONCEPT. CERTAINLY, I THINK THAT IT'D BE POSSIBLE TO CREATE A HYBRID OF THE TWO DESIGNS WITHOUT MUCH ADDITIONAL EFFORT.


A Floating Toilet To Keep Floating Villages From Going In Their Water Supply

In the Cambodian village of Prek Toal, everything floats. Houses, schools, grocery stores, a police station, and even beauty salons and a mechanics shop all rest on boats in the middle of a sprawling lake, relocating with the lake's expansion as the water rises and falls 30 feet throughout the year.
This mobile village, one of 200 on the lake, doesn't have modern plumbing. And that leads to a major challenge: Nearly 100,000 people who live on or near the lake use the water as an open bathroom, spreading bacteria that cause deadly illnesses like diarrhea and cholera. Now, an organization called Wetlands Work is hoping to scale a new technology that can help: floating toilets that use wetland plants to filter and clean the waste.
Wastewater goes into a pod, where plants like water hyacinth, which have trillions of beneficial microorganisms attached to the surface area of the roots, can reduce harmful bacteria like E. coli by 99.999%. This microbial treatment process works especially well in warm climates like Cambodia.
The floating toilets can be made cheaply from local materials. "Our technical invention is the first truly appropriate sanitation technology for a floating household," says Taber Hand, founder and director of Wetlands Work. The tech is low-cost, needs very little maintenance (or none at all), needs no power source or chemicals, and doesn't require much behavior change.

ESSENTIALLY, WHAT THEY DO IS MAKE A SMALL RAFT THAT HOLDS PLANTS LIKE HYACINTHS AND MOUNT IT BEHIND THE HOME. WASTE FROM THE BATHROOM IS DUMPED INTO THE RAFT, WHERE IT IS CLEANED BY THE PLANTS AND THE MICROBES WHICH NATURALLY TEND TO FORM ON THEIR ROOTS. YOU CAN SEE A VIDEO OF THE FLOATING TOILET AT WETLAND WORKS WEBSITE, WHICH I'LL HAVE A LINK TO IN THE SHOWNOTES. http://wetlandswork.com

THEY POINT OUT THAT ITS NOT A PERFECT SYSTEM, AS THEY'RE NOT RETURNING PURIFIED WATER TO THE RIVER, BUT ITS CERTAINLY FAR CLEANER THAN SIMPLY JUST THROWING ONES WASTE DIRECTLY INTO THE RIVER. THE COST FOR ONE OF THE UNITS IS CHEAP BY WESTERN STANDARDS, ABOUT $30, BUT EXPENSIVE FOR THE LOCALS AND THEY'RE TRYING FIND WAYS TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR THEM TO PURCHASE ONE.

IN WATCHING THE VIDEO, I COULDN'T HELP BUT NOTICE THAT IT USED PLASTIC PIPES IN ITS CONSTRUCTION. TO ME, IT WOULD SEEM THAT THEY COULD MAKE THE SAME SYSTEM OUT OF BAMBOO, INSTEAD OF PLASTIC PIPE. IT WOULDN'T LAST AS LONG, BUT WOULD PROBABLY BE MORE AFFORDABLE FOR THE LOCALS.

AGRICULTURE
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MORE AND MORE PEOPLE ARE BEING BORN EACH DAY, AND FEEDING THEM IS NO EASY TASK.


More Than Half of Africa’s Arable Land ‘Too Damaged’ for Food Production

A report published last month by the Montpellier Panel – an eminent group of agriculture, ecology and trade experts from Africa and Europe – says about 65 percent of Africa’s arable land is too damaged to sustain viable food production.
The report, “No Ordinary Matter: conserving, restoring and enhancing Africa’s soil“, notes that Africa suffers from the triple threat of land degradation, poor yields and a growing population.

The Montpellier Panel has recommended, among others, that African governments and donors invest in land and soil management, and create incentives particularly on secure land rights to encourage the care and adequate management of farm land. In addition, the report recommends increasing financial support for investment on sustainable land management.
The publication of the report comes with the U.N. declaration of 2015 as the International Year of Soils, a declaration the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) director general, Jose Graziano da Silva, said was important for “paving the road towards a real sustainable development for all and by all.”
According to the FAO, human pressure on the resource has left a third of all soils on which food production depends degraded worldwide.
Without new approaches to better managing soil health, the amount of arable and productive land available per person in 2050 will be a fourth of the level it was in 1960 as the FAO says it can take up to 1,000 years to form a centimetre of soil.
Soil expert and professor of agriculture at the Makerere University, Moses Tenywa tells IPS that African governments should do more to promote soil and water conservation, which is costly for farmers in terms of resources, labour, finances and inputs.
THERE ARE A FEW BRIGHTSPOTS. ACCORDING TO THE ARTICLE, RWANDA AND UGANDA ARE BOTH TAKING SIGNIFICANT STEPS TO TEACH FARMERS ABOUT SOIL MANAGEMENT, AND HELP STOP THE DESCTRUCTION OF THE SOIL IN THEIR COUNTRIES. ADDITIONALLY, PROJECTS LIKE THE GREEN TOILET I MENTIONED IN THE PREVIOUS SEGMENT CAN HELP REVERSE THIS TREND. WITH PROPERLY MANAGED AGRICULTURE, AFRICA COULD PRODUCE MORE THAN ENOUGH FOOD TO FEED THE WORLD.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
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FOSSIL FUELS AREN'T THE ONLY WAY TO POWER THE WORLD, AND THERE'S OFTEN CHEAPER METHODS.

I'M NOT REALLY SURE WHERE TO STICK THIS STORY, AS ITS MORE OF A DISCUSSION OF HOW TO EXPERIMENT WITH WHAT'S LITTLE MORE THAN A GIANT TOY, BUT IT DOES SHOW THAT THERE'S POSSIBILITIES THAT COULD BE EXPANDED UPON WITH A LITTLE EFFORT. IT COMES FROM GIZMODO. http://gizmodo.com/this-diy-solar-powered-death-ray-can-even-melt-metal-1685939697

This DIY Solar-Powered Death Ray Can Even Melt Metal

Burning ants with a magnifying glass is a long-accepted childhood pastime and possible indicator of sociopathy. But when Kevin Moore and Grant Reynolds at the Science Channel got the idea to more effectively harness the sun's destructive heat, they decided to go big...like 1,5oo degrees Fahrenheit big.
The materials needed are incredibly simple. The main ingredient in their terrifying solar weapon was a Fresnel lens, often used in old projection screen televisions. After that it was just building the frame with a dash of clever positioning to focus the sun's rays down to a single point. 

THE VIDEOS SHOW THEM MELTING SMALL AMOUNTS OF METALS SUCH AS ZINC AND ALUMINUM. NOT ENOUGH TO DO ANYTHING MORE THAN MAKE SMALL PIECES OF JEWELRY OR DECORATIVE ITEMS, AND A GIANT FRESNEL LENS MIGHT NOT BE THE EASIEST THING IN THE WORLD TO FIND, BUT IT SHOULDN'T BE TOSSED ASIDE SO EASILY. THE FRENCH HAVE USED A MIRROR BASED SOLAR FURNACE TO MELT LARGE QUANTITIES OF METAL, AND JUST BEING ABLE TO QUICKLY START A FIRE WITHOUT MATCHES CAN BE HANDY AT TIMES. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_furnace

http://inhabitat.com/this-monstrous-solar-oven-in-uzbekistan-can-melt-metal-with-its-laser-like-sun-beam/



HIGH TECH
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ITS NOT JUST SILICON VALLEY WHERE HIGH TECHNOLOGY IS BORN.

FROM DISRUPT AFRICA.COM WE HAVE THIS PIECE ABOUT BUILDING 3D PRINTERS FROM EWASTE. http://disrupt-africa.com/2015/02/tanzanias-buni-hub-builds-3d-printer-made-e-waste/

Tanzania’s Buni Hub builds 3D printer made from e-waste

Tanzanian innovation space Buni Hub has developed a 3D printer made from e-waste, the first of its kind in East and Central Africa.
The 3D printer was developed through a joint initiative between Buni Hub, which is a project of the Tanzania’s Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH), the techfortrade organisation, students and a lecturer from Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology (DIT).
The project is the first undertaken by the newly established mini-fabrication laboratory at Buni Hub, and is set to be made available to innovators looking to keep their production costs low through a number of FabLab maker centres.
Jumanne Mtambalike, community and trainee manager at Buni Hub, told Disrupt Africa the e-waste 3D printer will be used to print prototypes and models at the hub, as well as assisting with small-scale manufacturing.
“We have received requests from eight different organisations and individuals from different places in the world requesting us to share the work through documenting the process and publishing it online,” Mtambalike said.
“The plan now is to scale the production by involving SMEs and vocational training institutions to take part in the process. Another plan is to document all the work, create a Wiki, estimate the production cost and pilot the project of getting the filament from recycled plastic materials.”
He said Buni Hub interns will also get to work on building a second e-waste 3D printer.


IF YOU'RE NOT FAMILIAR WITH 3D PRINTERS, THEY'RE PERHAPS SOME OF THE MOST REMARKABLE TECH TO BE DEVELOPED IN THE PAST 30 YEARS OR SO. THEY BASICALLY ALLOW YOU TO MAKE COMPLICATED ITEMS USING VERY SIMPLE MATERIALS. MANY OF THE DESIGNS USE PLASTIC TO MAKE ITEMS, BUT OTHER MACHINES CAN BUILD THINGS OUT OF METAL OR OTHER MATERIALS. DISASTER RELIEF AGENCIES HAVE REALLY BEGUN TO EMBRACE THEM, BECAUSE ITS CHEAPER AND EASIER TO SEND ONE OF THE MACHINES TO A DISASTER AREA, ALONG WITH SUPPLIES OF PLASTIC, THAN IT IS TO TRY AND FIGURE OUT AHEAD OF TIME WHAT MIGHT BE NEEDED. AND DON'T THINK THAT BECAUSE ITS MAKING THINGS OUT OF PLASTIC THAT THERE ISN'T MUCH WHICH CAN BE DONE WITH THEM. ONE OF THE MOST AMAZING USES FOR THE MACHINES WHICH PRINT OUT PLASTIC ITEMS IS THAT THEY'RE BEING USED TO MAKE CUSTOM PROSTHETIC ARMS FOR PEOPLE. THE FINAL PRODUCT COSTS ONLY A FEW DOLLARS, COMPARED TO THE HUNDREDS OR THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS OF A COMPARABLE COMMERCIALLY PRODUCED PROSTHETIC. THIS IS ESPECIALLY TRUE WHEN YOU'RE MAKING PROSTHETICS FOR CHILDREN. THEY'LL QUICKLY OUTGROW AN EXPENSIVE PROSTHETIC, MEANING THAT THEIR FAMILY HAS TO COME UP WITH MORE MONEY TO BUY ANOTHER PROSTHETIC, THAT THEY'LL ALSO QUICKLY OUT GROW. WITH COSTS OF LESS THAN $100, ITS EASY TO REPLACE A PROSTHETIC THAT A CHILD OUTGROWS, OR IS BROKEN. EVEN BETTER, THERE ARE OODLES OF CUSTOM DESIGNED PROSTHETIC HANDS WHICH CAN EASILY BE PRINTED OUT THAT LOOK LIKE SUPERHERO HANDS. SO A KID CAN HAVE A HAND THAT LOOKS LIKE IRON MAN'S, WOLVERINE, OR OTHER SUPERHERO IF HE WANTS IT. THE ARTICLE DOESN'T HAVE ANY TECHNICAL DETAILS ON HOW THEY BUILT THE PRINTER, BUT I'LL PUT A LINK IN THE SHOWNOTES TO ARTICLES WHICH DO GIVE FAIRLY DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO BUILD ONE OUT OF EWASTE OR EVEN LEGOS.









TRANSPORTATION
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BETTER WAYS OF GETTING AROUND.

THIS STORY COMES FROM FORBES.COM
http://www.forbes.com/sites/faraigundan/2015/01/31/made-in-africa-three-cars-designed-and-manufactured-in-africa/

Made In Africa: Three Cars Designed And Manufactured In Africa

According to the World Bank, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to remain one of the fastest growing regions in the world. While Africa’s economy is soaring past most regions with an annual growth of about 5% due mainly to increased agriculture production, infrastructure investment including transportation, ports and energy as well as buoyant services led by tourism, telecommunications and financial services, the continent’s middle class is expected to swell to approximately 300 million people. Additionally, the World Bank projects private consumption in the region to remain strong in 2015-17; particularly with the continent’s burgeoning middle class looking to splurge on new passenger vehicles and for most, their first such purchase.

Last year, Africa was projected to see sales of new 2 million cars with major auto players such as Toyota, Tata Motors and General Motors GM -0.67% looking
at the continent for growth opportunities. According to Zawya, there are approximately 21.6 million passenger vehicles operating in Africa; making the continent’s nearly 1.2 billion population a very attractive prospect for global automobile manufacturers to penetrate. Not to be left out of the lucrative market, African entrepreneurs are now entering the automobile industry; designing and developing vehicles specifically geared for the local market and local consumers but with global aspirations.

THERE ARE THREE COMPANIES LOOKING TO DEVELOPING VEHICLES IN AFRICA. THEY ARE:

Kiira Motors Corporation, Uganda

Originally developed by students from Uganda’s Makerere University for a project headed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the sedan hybrid electric vehicle called the Kiira EV SMACK was designed for the region, local terrain and consumers’ ability to afford the car. The five-seater sedan is powered by a rechargeable battery and also has an internal combustion engine-based generator which charges the battery. The first commercial vehicle from this line is expected to rollout in 2018

Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Company, Nigeria

The domestic vehicle maker Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Company has built on its success of manufacturing buses and trucks to launch a passenger car line comprised of a truck (IVM 1021A) and a Sports Utility Vehicle (IVM 6490A). According to the company website, the automobile company was commissioned by President Goodluck Jonathan and founded by Mr. Innocent Chukwuma.

AND

Kantanka Automobile Company, Ghana

The Ghanaian based automobile company founded by Apostle Safo Kantanka, assembles its passenger vehicles (mainly SUVs and pickup trucks) at the company’s manufacturing plant located in Gomoa Mpota in the central region of Ghana. The automobile company has reportedly pushed back commercial release of its models pending approval from the Ghana Standards Authority.

The commercial success of these “made in Africa for Africans” cars will depend on the uptake by African consumers.

THE PROBLEM OF RELIABLE TRANSPORTATION IS NOT UNIQUE TO AFRICA, OF COURSE. A FEW YEARS AGO VENEZULA WAS COMPLAINING THAT THE CARS PRODUCED BY COMPANIES SUCH AS TOYOTA, GENERAL MOTORS, AND OTHER INTERNATIONALLY KNOWN CAR MAKERS WERE SIMPLY UNSUITABLE FOR THE CONDITIONS INSIDE THEIR COUNTRY. THE SAME CAN BE SAID FOR MUCH OF THE DEVELOPING WORLD, WHERE PAVED ROADS ARE RATHER RARE. BACK IN THE 1950S, PRESTON TUCKER DEVELOPED A CAR HE CALLED THE 'CARIOCA'. IT WAS DESIGNED TO BE RUGGED, SAFE, AND EASY TO MAINTAIN. THE PLAN WAS TO BUILD THE CARS IN BRAZIL AND OFFER THEM FOR SALE BOTH THERE, AND IN THE US. SADLY, HE DIED BEFORE THE PROJECT COULD BE STARTED. I'LL HAVE LINKS IN THE SHOWNOTES TO ARTICLES ABOUT TUCKER'S CARIOCA, BECAUSE WHILE IT MIGHT BE A 60 YEAR OLD DESIGN, THERE'S MUCH ABOUT IT THAT IS STILL APPLICABLE TO SOMEONE TRYING TO BUILD A CAR FOR THE DEVELOPING WORLD.






ENVIRONMENT
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WE'VE ONLY GOT THE ONE PLANET, SO WE'D BETTER PROTECT IT.

THIS ISN'T A STORY AS THE ARTICLE IS MERELY A LISTING OF IDEAS, WITH THE BAREST DESCRIPTIONS ABOUT THEM, BUT FOR MANY OF THEM, THAT'S REALLY ALL YOU NEED TO DO THEM. IT COMES FROM BIG BRAND TIRE.COM AND IS 25 WAYS TO RECYCLE TIRES. http://www.bigbrandtire.com/blog/recycle-used-tires

I WON'T GIVE YOU THE FULL 25, BUT I WILL TELL YOU SOME THAT THEY MENTION, SO YOU HAVE AN IDEA OF THE KINDS OF POSSIBILITIES, AND I'LL HAVE A LINK TO THE ARTICLE IN THE SHOWNOTES SO YOU CAN CHECK THEM OUT.

ONE OF THEM IS A BIKE RACK Simple yet such a brilliant solution, this bike rack is made from half-cut used tires bolted to the ground to wedge front bike tires into an upright position.

ANOTHER IS ROOFING SHINGLES: Because rubber is so easy to mold, it makes great material for roofing shingles. Not to mention, it lets you get a little creative with the shapes. Tire rubber may even be a little stronger than traditional roofing material, making your new rubber roof a sound investment.

THAT ONE REALLY SURPRISED ME, BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH I'VE HEARD OF PEOPLE BUILDING HOUSES OUT OF USED TIRES, THEY WENT WITH A DIFFERENT METHOD FOR SHINGLING THE ROOF.

THERE ARE OTHERS SHOWING HOW TO MAKE PLANTERS, FURNITURE, PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT, AND STORAGE CONTAINERS OUT OF THE TIRES. AGAIN, NOT THE FULL LIST, BUT THOSE ARE THE ONES WHICH SEEM THE MOST USEFULL TO ME, AND REALLY ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS LOOK AT THE PICTURES AND YOU'LL HAVE A GOOD IDEA OF HOW TO MAKE THEM, IF YOU'RE AT ALL HANDY WITH TOOLS.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
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At 46, Naseema Nashad is starting her life over, not out of choice but out of necessity. The Afghan woman was just 25 years old when Taliban militants stormed Kabul and her family was forced to flee to neighbouring Pakistan to escape what they knew would be a brutal regime.
“My father stayed back to run his small business there and he would send us money on a monthly basis,” she told IPS. “We used it to feed our seven-member family, and pay rent on our house in Peshawar [capital of Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pakhtunkwa province].”
But in 1999, “for no reason” she says, the Taliban killed Nashad’s father. Since then, it has been a daily struggle for the family to survive. Aged 12, 14 and 15, her three brothers quickly found work in local hotels, though they were paid paltry salaries for their labour.
Nashad, on the other hand, could never land anything but odd jobs, which barely gave her enough to survive. What she needed was something fulltime, ideally work she could do from home, that would bring her a regular income.
It was a pipe dream at first, but thanks to the efforts of a vocational centre established by the Afghan Women Organisation, an NGO based in this border city, she is close to making it a reality.
“Now, I have learnt stitching and embroidery and will open a home-based shop very soon. Some of the women who have previously been trained at the centre are helping me,” she added.
Safoora Stanikzai, who heads the Afghan Women Organisation, says she has imparted skills to about 4,000 women since establishing the centre in 2010.
“A majority of the trained women were either widows or orphaned children who had lost their male family members in Afghanistan and were facing severe economic problems here,” Stanikzai tells IPS.
The organisation lacks space and sufficient resources but soldiers on with the little it has. After the women complete their training, they even receive a sewing machine from the centre to facilitate home-based enterprises.
THERE'S MORE TO THE ARTICLE, BUT ITS MOSTLY DEDICATED TO PROFILING WOMEN WHO'VE BEEN HELPED BY THE PROGRAM AND DESCRIBING THE CONDITIONS THAT THEY'RE PRESENTLY LIVING UNDER, RATHER THAN ANY “HOW-TO” INFORMATION. IT IS A SAD SIGN OF HOW FAR AFGHANISTAN HAS FALLEN AFTER DECADES OF WARFARE. IN THE PAST, ITS WAS REKNOWN FOR THE QUALITY OF ITS FABRICS AND OTHER ITEMS MADE BY CRAFTSPEOPLE IN THE COUNTRY, YET MANY OF THOSE SKILLS SEEM TO HAVE BEEN LOST DURING THE DECADES OF WAR. STILL, IT LOOKS LIKE THERE'S SOME HOPE FOR THE PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THE PROGRAM.



THAT'S IT FOR THIS EPISODE OF BOOTSTRAPPING THE PLANET. FOR LINKS TO THE STORIES COVERED IN THIS, OR ANY OTHER EPISODE, ALONG WITH A LINK TO THE EMAIL ADDRESS, YOU CAN GO TO http://bootstrappingtheplanet.blogspot.com/ THE EMAIL FOR THE SHOW IS BOOTSTRAPPLANET@GMAIL.COM THE ITUNES COVER ART FOR THE PODCAST IS BY STEVE AT HUDSON MEDIA IN COLUMBUS, OH.  NOW, LET'S ALL GO MAKE THIS PLANET A BETTER PLACE.



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