Hardware Things: Some thoughts on mobility
Hope you’re doing well.
Later this month, I'll be attending the International Conference on Engineering Design presenting a paper. If you're going to be there, please let me know. Would love to meet!
In case you missed it, here’s the last newsletter.
Things I Enjoyed Reading
The GSM Association recently published their Powering Mobility: The Rise of Digital Transport in Africa report that focuses on the funding trends of transport and logistics startups on the continent. While most of the funding looks to be directed at companies that offer digital platforms as the main solution - whether through the digitization of mass transit systems or B2B logistics to map shippers to truckers - they find some interesting inflows into early-stage manufacturing concerns.
Side note: The Association for Electric Mobility and Development in Africa (AEMDA)'s Knowledge Hub provides some good reading on what's happening across the continent.
Maiduguri, in North East Nigeria, has not been in the news for very positive things over the years so I particularly enjoyed this Technology Review profile on Mustapha Gajibo making retrofitted EVs in the city. I have a lot of thoughts about the rise of electric vehicles across the continent as I'm quite unsure about the actual demand for them, but that's a topic for another newsletter.
Interesting Things
NamiGreen is providing second life applications for electronic waste. [Namibia]
Ifemade Oriade is designing speakers as art pieces. [Nigeria]
@bigbrovar built a 28kWh LiFePO4 battery bank. [Nigeria]
Things To Apply For
Code for Africa is hiring a Drone Technology Lead to drive social impact across their news and technology advocacy offerings using drone mapping.
Deadline: July 15.
AfricArena and Savant are receiving applications for their
Hardware Open Innovation Challenge. At three summits in Dakar, Tunis, and Nairobi, hardware entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to pitch and win equity-free capital among other perks.
Deadline: Rolling.
BMZ and develoPPP Ventures are receiving applications from growth startups in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania to support their scaling endeavours.
Deadline: Rolling.
Company Spotlight
In Namibia, ONGUZA is building road bicycles for the global market. Handmade from steel, and developed by an Olympian cyclist, their first bike is designed for rough terrains. I love when African (hardware) designers target a global audience and sell high quality products at competitive prices. It's an incredibly difficult task to make high performance products by hand but I think the storytelling too is very important. Dan Craven, the founder, writes about building the bikes in Omaruru and here's a report on the launch of their 'gravel' bike.
Until next time,
Chuma.
This month's Community Chat is our 20th edition! Our guest is Joel Ssematimba of AirQo. He’ll be speaking about developing networked air quality sensors in Uganda. Join us!