Hardware Things: Community internet networks
Hello there,
It’s the best month of the year, and not just because it’s the manufacturing or the open hardware month.
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Things I Enjoyed Reading
Senka Hadzic writes about community internet networks highlighting some work she’s been a part of in the Southern Cape Peninsula of South Africa. She makes an interesting point of how half the content on the web is in English even though most people do not speak English at home, going ahead to argue that this reflects a need for community networks with locally relevant content.
The African Continental Free Trade Agreement may have been signed, but behaviours rarely change overnight. Nigeria and Benin are currently engaged in a trade dispute with the former partially closing her border. As we know, the enforcement of previous trade agreements have been ad-hoc at best. How it develops will be interesting to see.
Interesting Things
Reducing drill bit wear with cryogenic methods
Carbon nanotubes are the new Silicon?
A Data Thing
Available spatial data is not something Nigeria is well known for, but the new GRID3 platform includes 980 datasets across 11 sectors and hopes to be useful for planning across the country.
Company Spotlight
In Tunisia, Enova Robotics is building a wide range of robots that do things from offer care at homes for the elderly to assist teams of forest authority staff keep the premises safe. Last year, they raised $1.6m in equity to expand their business.
I caught up with Ben Farhat Radhouane, their Chief Sales Officer, to chat about the business and some of their potential applications. I was surprised to find out that most of their customers are actually out of France; we talked about that and more: Robots to assist, not replace 🔒.
Tweet of the month
Characteristics of the consumption and nonconsumption economies. Which economy is your innovation targeting? @GlobalCCI
Have a good month,
Chuma.
PS: I’m trying to learn more about the hardware scene in Francophone Africa, particularly the relationship Orange has developed with startups of that region. Please reply if you can educate me, thank you!