Community Cooker in Kibera

The Kibera slum outside Nairobi, Kenya, does not have much of anything, except mountains of trash that fill rivers and muddy streets, breeding disease. Now a Kenyan architect, Jim Archer, has built a cooker that uses the trash as fuel to feed the poor, provide hot water and destroy toxic waste, as well as curbing the destruction of woodlands.

After nine years of development, the prototype “Community Cooker” is close to being rolled out in overcrowded refugee camps as well as slums around the country.

Behind a black-painted corrugated iron cooking area, rubbish collected by local youths dries on racks before being pushed into the furnace. Technicians have spent three years modifying the firebox to produce enough heat to destroy toxins in the rubbish, particularly plastics. The stove reaches around 650° C at present and the aim is 1000° C, but UNEP who provided funding is happy that the prototype has proven rubbish can be turned into energy.

The Red Cross is looking at taking these stoves countrywide. They hope to build at least a 100 over the next five years, depending on donor funding.

The Kibera stove cost about $10,000 to build as a prototype but the designers estimate each would cost $5-6,000 once produced in larger numbers. This compares with $50 million for industrial incinerators in Europe.

Original article: Barry Moody. Reuters. 2 April 2009. Read more…

BoP Learning Lab – Retail sector

Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership in conjunction with the University of Stellenbosch Business School will host a Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Learning Lab session with a focus on the retail sector on Thursday 9 April 2009.

The BoP Learning Lab aims to provide sources of inspiration and to be the toolbox with which the Southern African business community can maximise its social impact at the base of the pyramid. Spread over four continents, the BoP Learning Labs represent a “consortium of leading thinkers and practitioners interested in exploring new business opportunities in low-income communities that would benefit business as well as the local community”.

The lunchtime session on the 9th, the third for 2009, will feature presentations by Woolworths and FNB:

Woolworths has established itself in South Africa as “the difference” when it comes to retail. This seems to go further than the shopper’s experience. Even though Woolworths is decidedly a high income segment brand in South Africa, new procurement practices are constantly tested to include the BoP into the value chain of the company. Through his presentation, Kenneth Carden, strategy analyst within Woolworths, will develop the company’s integrated approach to socio-economic transformation.

David Milligan, FNB Commercial Banking, will describe the work being done by the bank to design and market Enterprise Development Solutions adapted to low income SA entrepreneurs. South Africa’s oldest bank, First National Bank is one of the largest financial institutions in the continent.

DATE: Thursday 9 April 2009
TIME: 12:30 – 14:00
VENUE: Open Innovation Studio, 27 Buitenkant Street, Cape Town

For more information, please visit www.bop.org.za. For bookings please e-mail us.

PlayPumps – a proudly South African invention

PlayPumps International’s mission is help improve the lives of children and their families by providing easy access to clean drinking water, enhancing public health, and offering play equipment to millions across Africa. It is an South African invention that was developed into one of the most innovative water solutions for poor families around the world.

In essence it is a children’s merry-go-round attached to a water pump, with a connected high capacity storage tank and tap.

The recipient of several international innovation awards, by 2010 the organisation plans to have 4000 PlayPump systems installed that will supply water to about 10 million people. The organisation’s funding model is also innovative. They seek donations for the installation of the system, and then sell advertising space on the water tower to pay for the maintenance of the system.

The design of the PlayPump water system makes it highly effective, easy to operate and very economical, keeping costs and maintenance to an absolute minimum. Capable of producing up to 1,400 liters of water per hour at 16 rpm from a depth of 40 meters, it is effective up to a depth of 100 meters.

Basically, the system works as follows: While children have fun spinning on the PlayPump merry-go-round (1), clean water is pumped (2) from underground (3) into a 2,500-liter tank (4), standing seven meters above the ground.
A simple tap (5) makes it easy for adults and children to draw water. Excess water is diverted from the storage tank back down into the borehole (6).
The water storage tank (7) provides a rare opportunity to advertise in outlaying communities. All four sides of the tank are leased as billboards, with two sides for consumer advertising and the other two sides for health and educational messages. The revenue generated by this unique model pays for pump maintenance

Read more…

Solar reaches low-income Indians

Bangalore, India-based social venture SELCO India recently raised growth financing to expand its program to provide renewable energy to low-income homes and businesses in India. The amount of funding was undisclosed and was led by an equity investment by Swiss-registered nonprofit Good Energies Foundation, which shares ownership with global venture capital firm Good Energies. The Lemelson Foundation and nonprofit E+Co also contributed.

SELCO India, short for Solar Electric Light Company, has sold, financed and serviced solar power units to 100,000 homes in India through microfinance and other models from a network of 25 rural service centres across the southern state of Karnataka. About two-thirds of its customers survive on less than $4 a day. The company is also working on cleaner versions of cookstoves, solar-powered water pumps and wireless communication.

According to India’s Central Electrical Authority, the country currently has the capacity to produce 130,000 MW of electricity every year but has a peak energy shortage of more than 15 percent.

SELCO was the recipient of the FT ArcelorMittal Boldness in Business Award for Corporate Social Responsibility.

Original article: Emma Ritch. Cleantech Group. 13 January 2009. Read more…

Student Invents Solar-Powered Fridge for Developing Countries

Proving once again that the best ideas are often the simplest, 21-year-old student/inventor/entrepreneur Emily Cummins has designed a brilliant portable solar-powered refrigerator that works based upon the principle of evaporation. Employing a combination of conduction and convection, the refrigerator requires no electricity and can be made from commonly available materials like cardboard, sand, and recycled metal.

Simply place perishable foods or temperature-sensitive medications in the solar refrigerator’s interior metal chamber and seal it. In-between the inner and outer chamber, organic material like sand, wool or soil is then saturated with water. As the sun warms the organic material, water evaporates, reducing the temperature of the inner chamber to a cool, 6 ºC [43 ºF] for days at a time!

Original article: Daniel Flahiff. Inhabitat. 12 January 2009. Read more…