Comments (0) SMA Solar Technology has delivered 100 of its standalone inverter systems, the Sunny Island and Sunny Boy, to healthcare centres in Ethiopia. The supply of these systems is under an agreement with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH.
By Brian Dumaine in Fortune Magazine, July 5, 2010
Nuru Energy, A London based startup, has found a way to make high efficiency LED lighting affordable in rural Rwanda. The secret? Create an army of local entrepreneurs.
In an effort to raise standards of living across the continent, the World Bank Group’s Lighting Africa Program has chosen five products it believes can bring light to poor and rural communities in Africa.
Lighting Africa is a joint program of the International Finance Corporation and the World Bank. The initiative aims to support the development of modern energy and lighting solutions for people in sub-Saharan Africa living without access to an electricity grid.
In recognising that ICT is a key driver of global economic growth, the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development (UN GAID) has taken a step towards creating a matrix of ICT solutions. This in efforts to advance the Millennium Development Goals (MGDs), which is the principal focus of the Global Alliance’s work in 2010.
Gichamba, 26, decided to create what he sees as the perfect technological solution for the farmers: a mobile phone app.
He created a text message-based system that lets farmers send questions to a computer. When the app launches at the end of April, a machine will match up farmers’ queries with a database of information about local dairy markets — and then spit answers back in 140 characters or less.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/12/africa.apps/index.html?hpt=Sbin
Now the villagers of Wagharwadi are experiencing a revolution of sorts on communication front too. Actually a modified solar lamp has changed their lives. This solar lamp has a tiny plug point at the base for recharging mobiles. It is the idea of an electronics entrepreneur Kumaar Thakkar.
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/solar-lamps-transform-indian-village/
CUZCO, Aug 27 (IPS) – Little by little, rural communities in southern Peru are beginning to take advantage of the Internet to acquire new knowledge and increase their income. But the use of computers in rural areas faces numerous challenges, from illiteracy to fear of the unknown or questions about the sustainability of these new communications initiatives once they are left in local hands.
http://us.oneworld.net/article/366346-perus-rural-communities-coming-online
As the international community prepares to celebrate World Food Day, Grameen Foundation today announced that it will expand its Community Knowledge Worker (CKW) initiative in Uganda, supported by a $4.7 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The initiative is building a self-sustaining, scalable network of rural information providers who use cell phones to help close critical information gaps facing poor, smallholder farmers. They will strengthen the information link to poor farmers by disseminating and collecting relevant information in these underserved communities…
BUSHENYI, Uganda — Laban Rutagumirwa charges his mobile phone with a car battery because his dirt-floor home deep in the remote, banana-covered hills of western Uganda does not have electricity…In an area where electricity is scarce and Internet connections virtually nonexistent, the mobile phone has revolutionized scientists’ ability to track this crop disease and communicate the latest scientific advances to remote farmers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/science/06uganda.html?_r=1
