Pedal power for Kenya's mobiles

It takes an hour of pedalling to charge a phone completely

Two Kenyan students are hoping to market a device that allows bicycle riders to charge their mobile phones.

Jeremiah Murimi, 24, and Pascal Katana, 22, said they wanted their dynamo-powered "smart charger" to help people without electricity in rural areas.

"We both come from villages and we know the problems," Mr Murimi told the BBC.

People have to travel great distances to shops where they are charged $2 a time to power their phone, usually from a car battery or solar panel.

"The device is so small you can put it in your pocket with your phone while you are on your bike," said Mr Murimi.

It is estimated that some 17.5 million people out of Kenya's 38.5 million population own a mobile handset - up from 200,000 in 2000.

We took most of [the] items from a junk yard Pascal Katana Young Malawian invents wind generator

Although similar devices already exist in other countries, they are not available in Kenya.

The two electrical engineering students from Nairobi University have been working on their own invention, which they are selling for 350 Kenyan shillings ($4.50) each, over the last few months during their university break.

In Kenya, bicycles are sold with a dynamo to be attached to the back wheel to power the lights.

The dynamo lead can be switched to plug into the charger instead, they explained.

Mr Katana explained it takes an hour of pedalling to fully charge a phone, about the same time it would if it were plugged into the mains electricity.

The BBC's Ruth Nesoba says after a short ride, the phone's battery display indicated that it was charging.

Guinea pigs

The cash-strapped students used old bits of electronic equipment for the project.

"We took most of [the] items from a junk yard - using bits from spoilt radios and spoilt televisions," said Mr Katana.

The dynamo is attached to the back wheel

Workers with bicycles at the campus were used as guinea pigs, including security guard David Nyangoro.

"I use a bicycle especially when I'm at home in the rural areas, where we travel a lot," he said.

"It's very expensive nowadays charging a phone. With the new charger I hope it will be more economical, as once you have bought it, things will be easier for you and no more expenses."

Mr Murimi says so far they have only made two chargers - but are making five more for people who have seen it demonstrated.

"And a non-government organisation in western Kenya wants 15 so they can test them out in rural areas to see how popular they prove," he said.

The two friends are about to start their fifth and final year at university in September.

"We are not planning to stop our studies," Mr Murimi said.

Kenya's National Council for Science and Technology has backed the project, and the students hope they will find a way of mass-producing the chargers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8166196.stm

Prize for 'Sun in the box' cooker

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website

At the heart of the idea is a simple black painted box...

A cheap solar cooker has won first prize in a contest for green ideas.

The Kyoto Box is made from cardboard and can be used for sterilising water or boiling or baking food.

The Kenyan-based inventor hopes it can make solar cooking widespread in the developing world, supplanting the use of wood which is driving deforestation.

Other finalists in the $75,000 (£51,000) competition included a device for streamlining lorries, and a ceiling tile that cools hot rooms.

Organised by Forum for the Future, the sustainable development charity founded by Jonathan Porritt, the competition aims to support concepts that have "moved off the drawing board and demonstrated their feasibility" for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but have not gained corporate backing.

With as many people as there are in the developing world today, they can't just cook using trees - they'll finish off all the trees Jon Bohmer, Kyoto Energy

"The Kyoto Box has the potential to transform millions of lives and is a model of scalable, sustainable innovation," said Peter Madden, the forum's chief executive.

It is made from two cardboard boxes, which use reflective foil and black paint to maximise absorption of solar energy.

Covering the cooking pot with a transparent cover retains heat and water, and temperatures inside the pot can reach at least 80C.

As many as two billion people in the world use firewood as their primary fuel.

Scaling up

The idea of cooking using the Sun's rays has been around for centuries, and a number of organisations including Solar Cookers International are already supporting their manufacture and distribution in the developing world.

FROM THE BBC WORLD SERVICE More from BBC World Service

Reducing reliance on firewood reduces deforestation, but also improves the health and wellbeing of villagers who do not have to trek for miles collecting the increasingly scarce wood nor spend hours inhaling wood smoke, a major cause of respiratory disease.

What impressed the judges about the Kyoto Box was the potential for production to be scaled up significantly in a number of developing countries.

"It's really the mass manufacturing aspect," said Jon Bohmer, who founded the company Kyoto Energy in Kenya.

"We can take existing factories like cardboard factories and begin to make thousands and thousands of the cookers each month," he told BBC News.

"So far, solar cooking has been a DIY project with people making them on their own in slums and so on; but this could be the Volkswagen, you might say."

An evaporating tile was another of the competition's finalists

Mr Bohmer hopes to gain funding from the international carbon market.

By demonstrating that using the Kyoto Box reduces greenhouse gas emissions, he can gain "carbon credits" from western countries and companies.

"With as many people as there are in the developing world today, they can't just cook using trees - they'll finish off all the trees," he said.

Other innovations reaching the competition's final included

• a feed additive for livestock, derived from garlic, which can cut methane emissions from cows and sheep by at least 5%
• an indoor cooling system that uses a building's exhaust air to evaporate water held inside hollow tiles
• a giant microwave oven that turns wood into charcoal
• an aerodynamic cover for lorry wheels that reduces drag and thus fuel use

The Climate Change Challenge competition was also supported by the Financial Times newspaper and technology company HP.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7991654.stm

East Africa gets high-speed web

New cables could revolutionise communications in the region

The first undersea cable to bring high-speed internet access to East Africa is going live.

The fibre-optic cable, operated by African-owned firm Seacom, will connect South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique to Europe and Asia.

The firm says the cable will help to boost the prospects of the region's industry and commerce.

The cable - which is 17,000km long - took two years to lay and cost more than $650m.

Seacom said in a statement the launch of the cable marked the "dawn of a new era for communications" between Africa and the rest of the world.

The services are being unveiled in ceremonies in the Kenyan port of Mombasa and the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam.

School benefits

The cable was due to be launched in June but was delayed by pirate activity off the coast of Somalia.

The BBC's Will Ross in Nairobi says the internet revolution trumpeted by Seacom largely depends on how well the service is rolled out across the region.

To the disappointment of many consumers, our correspondent says some ISPs (internet service providers) are not planning to lower the cost of the internet, but instead will offer increased bandwidth.

But businesses, which have been paying around $3,000 a month for 1MB through a satellite link, will now pay considerably less - about $600 a month.

The Kenyan government has been laying a network of cables to all of the country's major towns and says the fibre-optic links will also enable schools nationwide to link into high quality educational resources.

But our correspondent says it is not clear whether the internet revolution will reach the villages, many of which still struggle to access reliable electricity.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8165077.stm