Friday, September 11, 2009

Lots more to come


Hi folks,

Many apologies for the complete lack of posts for the last three weeks or so. The final presentations, closing ceremony, Maker Faire Africa and a lengthy trip back home to Ireland(and then to Italy!) restricted my blog postings.

IDDS was a fantastic experience for all involved though, and writing this blog has been a really big part of that for me! Thanks so much to you all for checking in now and again with the IDDS world.

This is not the end of IDDS however. We are currently updating the website and will be integrating the blog into the homepage of the site www.iddsummit.org and providing you with regular updates as to whats going on in the world of IDDS. Project Grants, their development and dissemination, partnership grants and of course the hotly anticipated IDDS 2010 in Colorado are to come so please stay tuned!

Thanks again,
Niall

Keep reading...

Monday, August 10, 2009

Project Update 3 - Water, Health and Sanitation


Water, health and sanitation proved the focus of these four projects, as they sought to tackle a diverse set of problems in these linked areas. Clean water and high levels of hygiene are crucial for both short term and long term health for communities in the developing world and the teams were aware of the gravity of the projects they were working on. Two teams focused on Chlorine, one on production and one on dosing, while another centered on how to make Latrines friendly for all the family. The final project in this area had a much more direct link with health, trying to develop an ICT Enabled system for monitoring the health of low weight babies. Some of the posters below are in Twi, so don't be disheartened if you cannot understand them!


Local Chlorine Production Team

















Chlorine Dosing Team











ICT Enabled Baby Monitoring Team












Family Friendly Latrine Team





Keep reading...

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Project Update 2 - Energy and the Environment



One of the main problems faced by the villagers we encountered was that of energy, and how best it could be created, stored and put to use for them. The levels of interest in these projects was very high in the villages, with both adults and children alike eager to try out the prototypes. The other projects in this area were focused on how to create value out of recycled waste products, and how best to store, transport and cool vegetables without using electricity.
Again, some of these posters are in Twi, to enable the visiting villagers to understand how the prototypes were made.


Playground Power team











Recycled Plastic Products Team











Cool Storage Team












Small Scale Energy Storage






Keep reading...

Project Update 1 - Agricultral Processes


In the villages where we work, farming provides the main source of income and subsistence, and as such all of these projects were of direct relevance to our community partners. Seeing them transformed from problems to prototypes has been wonderful to see, and something the villagers could see the direct benefit in! Below I have uploaded snapshots of each of the teams posters, and you can click on each photo to enlarge the text and pictures. If you are having difficulty reading some of the posters, that's because they are written either in Twi or Mo, two languages which are spoken in different regions of the country. These, of course, are so our village partners can read about the prototypes too!



Shea Oil Extraction
Team










Rice Threshing
Team











Groundnut Threshing Team











Cassava Processing Team







Keep reading...

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Village Visit Three - Back to New Longoro

The dust has finally settled on our third and final village visit, so I thought I would fill you in on what we got up to, before following up this evening with some overdue updates on the projects.


This visit differed in many ways from the previous two, not least because we actually had something physical to show to the villagers. These prototypes are the result of five weeks of collaboration with welders and workshop managers in Suame Magazine, and indeed the villagers themselves. The aim of the visit was not simply to showcase a bunch of cool technologies, however. The teams were desperate to hear the villagers input on the usability and efficiency of the prototypes, with a view to incorporating these suggestions into the prototypes displayed at the final presentations this Monday.


Rather than focusing on one village, participants instead each visited a cluster of three/four villagers, to make sure that the villagers got to see as many of the prototypes as possible, given that we had talked so much about them on the previous two visits. Each village thus got to see four different teams present, and thus you can imagine we caused quite a stir as we loaded off the bus on arrival! I personally had the opportunity to travel back to the cluster including New Longoro, the site of my first village visit over four weeks ago, and it was inspiring to see the sense of ownership the villagers placed in projects that they had helped to transform from problems to prototypes.


Loading the goods into the van was an experience in itself. We had with us the Groundnut Threshing, Chlorine Production, Kid Friendly Latrine and Shea Oil Extraction teams and as such had quite a few bulky prototypes to try and squeeze around the twenty or so bodies also making the trip! However, looking around us to the other buses loading up (including the gargantuan rice thresher and playground carousel) quickly put our troubles in perspective!


The electro carousel generator, while irrevocably cool, was a nightmare to transport!


We set off in the early morning and thus arrived into New Longoro just in time for lunch at Pastor George’s house. After a healthy serving of Palava Suace and Yam (courtesy of the hospitable Comfort) we made our way across to the Mango Tree, to begin setting up for what would turn out to be a pretty momentous meeting. Quite a few of the teams were actually quite nervous about presenting their prototypes, given how much was riding on the villagers reaction to them. They would not have been assuaged by the huge numbers of children and adults beginning to assemble for the event!



An expectant grouping of elders awaits...


We are lucky enough to have a direct link to the village committee in New Longoro, due to the fact that the chief of the village, Daniel Kanter, is a participant at this year’s summit! The relationship that has been built up with this community due to D-lab’s continued involvement in it seems an apt example to highlight the importance of strong partnerships in development. Another example of how these ties are constantly being strengthened came with a quick presentation made before the teams introduced their own individual projects.


Amy presented the primary school with some supplies which had been fundraised by a school in her home town of Lexington, Boston. The villagers were absolutely delighted with the supplies, and we were just about to get underway when Daniel presented Amy with something much more valuable. He told us of how their village had been without a Queen Mother for some time now, and that they had finally decided on who that should be. He duly brought out an elegantly crafted stool that he gave to Amy, making her the Queen Mother of New Longoro. This was not in any way a token gesture. In the chiefdom setup, the Queen Mother is the only one with the power to rebuke the chief in public, as well as choosing the next chief of the village!



Amy was absolutely delighted with this warm gesture from the village

Amy tries out her new seat, and her new position

Once the formalities were over and done with, it was time for the much anticipated project presentations. The crowd were in raptures as the first the Shea Oil team presented, quickly followed by Chlorine Production and Kid Friendly Latrine. It was the final presentation of the Groundnut Threshers that really provoke the most vociferous reaction from the villagers. The team has developed a number of handheld and mechanized prototypes for threshing groundnuts, a time intensive process. Every member of the team got to demonstrate a particular prototype and each time, they held aloft the threshed plant to raucous cheers from the crowd!


Daniel introduces the Shea Oil project to the group with his teammates

Timo, also native to New Longoro, translates for his Grounnut Threshing team

The real interaction between the villagers and the teams came outside of the formal presentations, however. Each team set up their prototype and encouraged the villagers to come forward any attempt to use it, and the children present at the meeting certainly didn’t need to be asked twice! A scramble ensued to see who could grab the threshed groundnuts, before the kids made their way over to the Kid Friendly latrine team, to try out their prototype. The adults present were also not slow at providing feedback for the teams, and all seemed genuinely in understanding not only how the project worked, but also how it was made, which was a crucial point.


This was hugely useful to the participants in two ways. The feedback they received and the testing questions they were asked served to provide much food for though as regards their final designs, and they are excited to see how these changes could be implemented. More importantly though, it also served to excite the participants about their own projects, when they saw the unbridled enthusiasm that potential end users had for the early stage prototypes. Stephen Gerrard, from the Chlorine Production team, highlighted this mid way through the visit when he spoke to the group about how unsure his team had been about the potential usability of their product among the people who would need it most. “There is a huge difference between discussing concepts and actually talking to the people who will be using the product”, he said. “Actually having fifteen or so young men come up to me and ask how they could go about making some Chlorine Production prototypes of their own has had a big impact on how I view the project”.


Stephen's Project was a hit with the villagers

Radikha finds quite a lot of interest in the sketches of her teams Kid Friendly Latrine design

Casserdy attempts to control the unruly mob of kids eager to try out his teams hand washing facility!


Gago shows the village women their adjustable seat flap, a central part of their design

Gago shares a joke with some of the kids, eager to teach him how to click his fingers!

After an intense couple of hours, we eventually managed to leave the mango tree meeting, not without half of the children following us back to George’s house though! We were up early the next morning for the next leg of our journey, a trip to the smaller village of Gomboi, about a thirty minute drive from New Longoro. The presentations here also went off without a hitch, albeit to a much smaller audience given the size of the village. A short walk later found us in Dwere, where the teams would present for the last time. This time we had a fifth presenter, Amy Smith! Having seen on an earlier visit the problems the villagers had in transporting clay, she had come up with a solution, and then worked on creating it in Suame. Needless to say the village women loved it!We also brought with us the tools necessary to make a corn sheller, to teach any of the villagers who had shown an interest when we demonstrated the technology a couple weeks back.


The village elders in Dwere


Eric and one of the Dwere men see the funny side of things

A kid tries out the seat during the Kid Friendly Latrine presentation in Dwere

Amy shows off the clay carrier to the villagers

The village women showed great interest in Amy's prototype

IDDS, making it's presence felt on the world map

The only tools and materials one requires to make a corn sheller

A variation on the corn sheller developed by Jessica Huang, an organizer at this year's IDDS

At this point in our journey, our paths diverged, with some of the teams staying in Gomboi and the others back in New Longoro. The Groundnut Threshing team still had some work to do and as such remained behind in Gomboi with Amy. The rest of us made our way back to the pastor’s house, before deciding on gifts for the villagers who had been so hospitable to us over our three visits. A group of us even managed to get up at 6am for a 22 man game of soccer with some of the kids we got talking to the evening before. After teaching us a couple of lessons in fitness and finishing we decided to give our ball to the kids, who will probably make better use of it than we will!


Throughout these village visits there has been a huge amount of scope for teams to break away from the itinerary of the trip in order to accomplish their own specific goals. The ICT Enabled Baby Monitoring team took full advantage of this on this village visit, completely changing their plans for the weekend. A day into their visit, they realized that they were not yet a stage to present their project to people in the villages, and made their way back to the hostel to keep working on their project. An intense 48 hours later, they made their way to another nearby village, conveniently on baby weighing day, and got some great feedback on their prototype there.


Evan and Mensah playing around with their prototype on the way into the village


Paulina and one of the health workers test out their prototype

Miguel Chaves, also of the ICT team, with some of the village kids

Everyone I spoke to on my return from the villages had a positive experience on this final visit, and the vast majority had also got some great information for their project too. Sometimes incredibly simple things can often be overlooked by teams as they get caught up in the intricacies of their design. The Rice Threshing team ran onto this on their visit, with the standout comment being, “how can you make it bigger, and thresh more out of it?”. The rice team had been understandably worried about the size of their rather large machine but when looking at it from a rice farmers perspective, one can easily understand how quantity could be the major issue!


One of the village chiefs tries out the Rice Thresher, as Hazwan watches on

Ben presents the village chief in Adumkrom with a football - always a hit in Ghana!

The presentations provided a huge amount of entertainment for the kids!

Patricia Tarwaile with one of the village kids

Keep reading...