Here
are five African inventions which may take off in 2017.
An
Electricity Grid for the Whole Village
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Problem: A total of 1.3 billion
people worldwide currently don't have electricity, according
to Yale Environment 360. Getting people in rural areas on to the national
grid is proving too difficult and traditional solar panels generate meagre
amounts of energy.
Solution: Steamaco makes solar
and battery micro-grids which can work for a whole village. They are small
electricity generation and distribution systems that operate independently of
larger grids.
How
it works: Micro-grids
are nothing new. The new part is that Steamaco's technology automates the
regulation of electricity.
So,
if the system detects there will be a surge in demand for electricity, for
example on a Saturday night when people want to start playing music for a
party, or they see a dip in supply, like when the sun has gone down and so the
grid is not collecting solar energy, then the grid automatically stops
electricity for people it won't affect too badly.
The
system sends an automatic text to all customers on the grid saying that the
electricity in houses is about to be cut off so that the hospital can keep on
going.
Who
is talking about this?
In June the Kenyan company won
awards from the clean energy charity Ashden, reports
the Guardian.
A
Jacket That Detects Pneumonia
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| BRETT ELOFF |
Problem: Pneumonia kills 27,000
Ugandan children under the age of five every year. Most of these cases are due
to pneumonia being misdiagnosed as malaria.
Solution: Ugandan engineer Brian Turyabagye
has designed a biomedical "smart jacket" to quickly and accurately
diagnose pneumonia. The Mamaope jacket measures a sick child's temperature and
breathing rate. It can diagnose pneumonia three to four times faster than a
doctor and eliminates most possibility for human error.
How
it works: A
modified stethoscope is put in a vest. It is linked to a mobile phone app that
records the audio of the patient's chest. Analysis of that audio can detect
lung crackles and can lead to preliminary diagnoses.
Who
is talking about this?:
It is shortlisted for the 2017 Royal Academy of Engineering Africa Prize.
A
Tablet That Monitors Your Heart
Problem: It is difficult
for people in rural areas to travel to the cities to see heart specialists.
There are just 50 cardiologists in Cameroon, which has a population of 20
million people.
Solution: Arthur Zang
invented the Cardio Pad - a handheld medical computer tablet which healthcare
workers in rural areas use to send the results of cardiac tests to specialists
via a mobile phone connection.
How
it works: Cardiopads
are distributed to hospitals and clinics in Cameroon free of charge, and
patients pay US$29 (£20) yearly subscriptions. It takes a digitised reading of
the patient's heart function. In a few seconds the results of a heart test are
sent to a specialist clinic in the capital.
Who
is talking about this?: It
won the Royal Society award for African engineering in 2016 and the Rolex award
for Enterprise in 2014. But Mr
Zang told BBC Africa that these things take time to develop and it only got
approval from the Cameroon authorities in October 2016.
So,
it is more likely that people will actually see it in their clinics in 2017.
An
App for Hair Inspiration
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Problem: A lack of accurate
information about how to achieve certain hairstyles and where to find a
high-quality stylist.
Solution: Three software
engineers - Priscilla Hazel, Esther Olatunde and Cassandra Sarfo - invented
Tress, an app to share ideas about hairstyles.
How
it works: It
is described
by Okay Africa as a kind of Pinterest or Instagram for hair. Once you
have downloaded the app, you can follow other people who are sharing their
hairstyle. You can search specifically by place, price range and the type of
hairstyle your want, from relaxed hair to cornrow.
You
can then scroll until your heart's content through people who have uploaded
pictures of themselves with that style, tell them how much you like their
style, ask how long it took, and even arrange to meet up with someone to style
your hair.
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TRESS
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Who
is talking about this?: The
three software engineers behind this are graduates of the Meltwater
Entrepreneurial School of Technology in Accra, Ghana.
They
were then selected for the Y Combinator eight-week fellowship programme for start-up
companies.
Y
Combinator is prestigious - business news website Fast Company called it "the world's most powerful start-up
incubator". In other words, the school is thought of as really good at
finding the next Mark Zuckerberg.
A
Currency for Paying Online Workers
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Problem: There are online
workers, specifically web developers, in Africa who people outside the
continent would like to employ but it is difficult or prohibitively expensive
to get their wages to them. Some don't have passports, and so don't have bank
accounts either.
Solution: Bitpesa uses Bitcoin to
significantly lower the time and cost of remittances and business payments to
and from sub-Saharan Africa.
How
it works:
Bitpesa uses the crypto-currency bitcoin as a medium to transfer cash across
borders. Bitcoin is a system of digitally created and traded tokens and people
keep their tokens in online wallets.
It
then takes the Bitcoin tokens and exchanges them into money in mobile money
wallets - a popular way of paying for things in places like Kenya and Tanzania.
BitPesa
is already used to pay online workers - a company called Tunga is using it as a
way of getting wages from clients abroad to web developers in Uganda.
Who
is talking about it?:
It won an award for the
best apps across Africa in November.
