Archive for the ‘Tech News’ Category

Last week I spent some time in the San Francisco Bay Area talking to some tech insiders about Qiqima, and basically just trying to soak in that Silicon Valley energy. One of my stops was at the Tech Shop in Menlo Park, I have to say I was completely blown away.

In short, the TechShop is workshop that provides membership access to tools and equipment, instruction, and a creative community of like-minded people so they can build the things you have always wanted to make. Or, as I describe it, the TechShop is a place where adults can set their imaginations free and play with all those power tools and industrial lasers you were never allowed to touch as a child. I have never seen anything like it. In a sense, it is the same principle as open source code that is made available to all for the betterment of society.

The TechShop was recently featured in the February issue of Wired magazine, in which Chris Anderson wrote, ”When TechShop founder Jim Newton went looking for an executive to run it, he quickly decided on Mark Hatch, a former Kinko’s executive. The analogy is apt: In the same way that Kinko’s democratized printing and, in the process, created a national chain of service bureaus, TechShop wants to democratize manufacturing.”

Image courtesy of www.techshop.ws

So what does this mean for Africa? Lowering the barriers to entering the manufacturing business by making tools easily accessible means that we can now potentially compete on the imagination and creativity. As Mark commented while we toured the premises, human creativity is the single largest untapped resource in the world. I hope that such opportunities to manifest creativity will be extended to Africa and other emerging markets around the world. Of course, I made sure to plug Afrigadget as a site to discover the inventiveness, resoursefulness and entreprenuership of the African spirit.

If you are ever in the Bay Area, I strongly encourage you to stop by the TechShop and check it out for yourself. They also have locations in in Durham, North Carolina, and Beaverton, Oregon, and will be opening more centers around the country.

We have received our first review on TechMasai today. And I am very excited. Please take the time to sign up for your free Qiqima account and give us your take. Thank you TechMasai for the (mostly) positive feedback. It is very welcome. Of course there is still much work to be done to realize our full potential as a social network. Be on the look out for new features that are in the works.

OLPC's XO-3

From time to time I will post something that catches my attention, usually technology-related, that is helping to close the digital divide in less developed countries. Recently I read a post about the organization called One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) who have conceptualized a $75 tablet PC that is absolutely beautiful to look at. The XO-3, as it has been named, is a slim-line touchscreen computer that will supposedly be ready for distribution in 2012. It will eventually replace the XO-1 model that, so far, has been given out to more than 1.4 million children in 35 countries at a cost of $200 per machine. Both laptops can run Windows or Linux.

According to Wikipedia “The One Laptop Per Child Association, Inc. (OLPC) is a U.S. non-profit organization set up to oversee the creation of an affordable educational device for use in the developing world. Its mission is “To create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.” Its current focus is on the development, construction and deployment of the XO-1 laptop.”

OLPC's original XO model

While I applaud and support the efforts of OLPC and, love the idea of a $75 laptop, tablet or other-wise, for now you can count me among the ranks of the skeptics who say that it is just not possible to produce a laptop for that price. But I sincerely hope that history will prove me wrong and that each child will have the opportunity to enjoy the benefits that come with early exposure to technology.