Arsenal lost 1-0 to Manchester United in the English Premier League on Sunday but an Arsenal fan in Uganda lost a lot more. Henry Dhabasani is now homeless after betting his two-bedroom house that the Gunners would defeat the Red Devils, The Observer in Uganda reported.
Before the match, he put the bet with Rashid Yiga in writing. Yiga had a lot to lose too – he reportedly staked his wife and new car on a Man United victory so he’s probably thanking Robin van Persie and his lucky stars.
Dhabasani, though, has big problems. According to The Observer, Man United fans stormed his house in Iganga on Monday and forced him and his family out.
Manchester United’s Robin van Persie celebrates after scoring against Arsenal during their league match at Old Trafford Stadium on November 10. (Pic: AP Exchange)
African smartphone users will soon have an alternative means to get round the power shortages afflicting much of the world’s poorest continent – a portable charger that relies on hydrogen fuel cells.
British company Intelligent Energy plans to roll out 1-million of the new chargers in mid-December, mainly in Nigeria and South Africa, after successfully testing them in Nigeria over the last five months, its consumer electronics managing director, Amar Samra, said.
“In emerging markets where the grids are not reliable and people are using [mobile phones] as a primary device, it is mission critical; if you’re out, you’re out,” Samra said on the sidelines of a telecoms conference in Cape Town.
The chargers are designed to back up the spread of smartphones and tablets across countries where cellphones have already helped to transform lives and businesses.
(Pic: Reuters)
Industry body GSMA, which represents about 800 of the world’s mobile operators, said in its latest report that smartphones were key to boosting mobile Internet access in sub-Saharan Africa where current penetration of 4% of the population lags the global average of 17%.
Ericsson predicts that smartphone traffic in Africa will increase tenfold between 2013 and 2019, when around 476-million devices will be in use.
“Alternative sources of power are very important, because smartphones and other devices need lots of power and you need to charge up every four hours, so for a businessman it is crucial,” said Melvin Angula, an engineer attending the conference.
The hydrogen chargers, which fit easily into a handbag, consist of a fuel cell and a non-disposable cartridge that can be detached when exhausted.
Samra said consumers could expect to pay less than $5 dollars to “refuel” a cartridge of the charger.
This would translate to a cost of less than $1 to charge a phone, he said, adding that final costs would ultimately depend on how telecoms companies marketed and sold the product.
Samra said that if bought over the counter, the entire device will cost under $200, although options being considered include $10 a month for a two-year contract or getting it for free.
“We always have problems with cell batteries, so everybody will be keen for portable energy. But, it has to be the right price for it to fly in our markets,” said businessperson Thabo Magagula, who also attended the conference.
Besides Intelligent Energy, Japan’s Aquafairy has also been developing fuel cell chargers, Samra said.
Other companies, such as Dubai-based developer Solarway, have launched solar powered kiosks designed for communities that are not linked to a power grid, each capable of charging up to 40 cellphones a day.
Dedicated to supporting youth in Ethiopia through the promotion of skateboarding and other educational initiatives, Ethiopia Skate was started in 2012 by 16-year-old Abenezer Temesgen and his partner Sean Stromsoe in Addis Ababa. Temesgen fell in love with skateboarding two years ago and has since taught 25 kids how to skateboard.
Ethiopia Skate plans to launch the country’s first public skatepark and needs as much support as it can get to successfully make this dream come true.
The video below introduces the project and the guys behind this great initiative. Check it out.
Dynamic Africa is a multimedia curated blog focused on all facets of African cultures, African history, and the lives and experiences of Africans on the continent and in the diaspora – past and present. Visitthe blog and connect with the curator, Funke Makinwa, on Twitter.
The usually straightforward act of going to the toilet is is far from simple in Kibera, the sprawling slum on the edge of Kenya’s capital.
Hundreds of thousands of people, whose homes are little more than makeshift shacks, are crammed into an area that lacks the most basic water and sanitation facilities, and where just one public toilet is available to every 300 people.
The result is two-fold: First, people become adept at holding it in, often spending hours in discomfort. And second, they eventually find relief by doing the necessary in a plastic bag, and then tossing it out onto the street or path outside.
Hence “flying toilets”, one of the many scourges of life in Kibera.
“Sanitation is one of the world’s biggest problems. Forty percent of the world’s population don’t have toilets. They say about 70 percent of the diseases come from the lack of sanitation, where water is polluted,” said Camilla Wirseen, director of a project that proposes an innovative solution to the problem.
Wirseen, who works for the Swedish firm Peepoople, is using Kibera as a testing ground for the Peepoo, a biodegradable, self-sanitising, single-use toilet that could one day provide a cheap, smart fix for the world’s billion slum dwellers.
The Peepoo is a slim bag with a larger liner tucked inside, both made of biodegradable plastic and designed to fit over a small pot. Inside the bag are a couple of spoonfuls of granulated urea, an ammonia that eliminates dangerous pathogens contained in faeces and urine within two to three weeks.
After use, the bag is knotted and taken to a drop-off point – where the family gets a small refund on the bag’s small purchase price because the contents are sold on for fertiliser.
Peepoo Bag. (Pic: peepoople.com)
“Before the project started, flying toilets were everywhere,” Wirseen told AFP, explaining that Kibera residents dare not go out at night to relieve themselves because of security fears.
“It’s also a social problem: women hold all day.”
‘A question of dignity’ Lydia Kwamboka, a 29-year-old Kibera resident and happy Peepoo user, said the freedom to answer the call of nature whenever necessary had had a profound impact on her life.
“Where I stay there are no toilets. When my kids had diarrhoea at night, I just gave them a plastic bag and dumped it in the drainage in the morning. You had to be careful what you stepped on,” she said.
“When Peepoo was brought in, it changed almost everything,” added Ann Wambui, a schoolteacher and another user of the bag.
“You can use it alone. Once used you dispose of it and Peepoo is carried away the same day, while you need money to get the latrines cleaned,” she said.
Peepoo salesperson Patricia Okello, aged 51 and also a Kibera resident, said she believed the part of the slum where Peepoople has been testing the bags since 2010 – currently to the tune of 5 000 a day – was becoming a cleaner, healthier place.
“Before Peepoo, this place was very dirty, the water we drank was not clean. Now we don’t have sicknesses like cholera and typhoid anymore,” she said. “It has brought a big change in my life.”
An illustration of the usage of Peepoo bags and toilets in Kibera. (Pic: AFP)
Wirseen said the aim was for the Kibera project to expand ten-fold over the next year, and twenty-fold by the end of 2015.
While Peepoo’s business model is still unproven as a long-term, sustainable solution – after all, it depends on the world’s poorest people seeing a benefit in paying 200-Kenyan shillings (around USD $2) for something they used to do for free – the Kibera testing ground has at least proved that the product works.
In addition, the firm is hoping the bags can be stockpiled for humanitarian emergencies in order to help refugees from conflict or victims of natural disasters like earthquakes, floods or typhoons before proper sanitation structures can be put in place.
Above all, the project helps highlight how going to the toilet cannot be taken for granted.
“Sanitation,” Wirseen said, “is a problem of dignity.”
Angola usually appears near the bottom of rankings that quantify the ease of doing business in a particular country. The most recent Doing Business report ranks Angola in 179th place out of 189 countries. Corruption is rampant and institutionalised – Angola is ranked 157 out of 176 countries on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. The costs of opening a business are very high, the entrepreneurial climate is fraught with obstacles, and the bureaucracy is gloriously inefficient.
Despite all this, I left my corporate job in New York City earlier this year and moved back to Luanda to start a business.
Angola is constantly in the news because of its economic boom – ever since the war ended in 2002 and the price of oil, the country main export, has soared, the government has become awash in cash. It even has the apparent luxury of ‘bailing out’ Portugal from its current economic crisis – one just has to look at the amount of Angolan money in Lisbon’s stock exchange. However, the entrepreneurial climate in Angola has struggled to keep up and doing business here is a challenging proposition, to put it mildly.
This summer I started an online micro-enterprise in Luanda with two friends. The start-up operates in the hospitality sector, does not have any paid employees, and so far does not yet pay rent in an office. Still, it cost more than $4 000 and took six weeks to open. Even so, this is a great improvement from just two years ago.
Officially, it’s possible to open a business in Angola in just one day at the Guiché Único da Empresa (GUE), a government institution that greatly simplifies the process. The reality, however, is that it takes much longer. But two years ago GUE was not what it is today, and I’ve been able to witness just how much more professional and efficient the institution has become.
Once we had our start-up legalised and our business model prepared, we were ready to start operations and set about finding and contacting potential clients. As any visitor to Luanda will quickly realise, traffic in the capital is an absolute nightmare. If there is ever a study done on just how much Luanda’s traffic negatively impacts the country’s economic output, I’d be first in line to read it. With this in mind, we had to be very creative with how to get the most out of the day, how to meet with different clients in different areas of the city, and how to squeeze in time for a quick lunch. With a bit of finesse, a willingness to experiment, and a very open mind, we learned to adapt our schedules and temper our expectations.
A view of Luanda’s Central Business District taken on August 30 2012. (Pic: AFP)
Each country has its own business culture and its fair share of rather quirky norms. When it comes to communication in Luanda, introductory emails are overly formal and people love to give themselves important titles. Their e-mail signatures are coveted, elaborate markers of glory.
Most people have two phones – one SIM from the country’s two mobile phone networks in each. Nothing gets done on Friday and if Monday is a holiday you can expect people to take Friday and perhaps even Tuesday off.
Pray that your workplace is adequately equipped with a proper generator and water supply, because the city’s infrastructure is very weak. If it rains, chaos will ensue. The city’s roads and sewage system are badly built and not equipped for rain, as the water has nowhere to go. The already dreadful traffic worsens and some areas of the city resemble Venice with its canals.
Luandans have learned not to be overly specific with time and know to give generous leeway when it comes to people arriving late to meetings. Sometimes, the situation is simply outside of their control – in our city, anything can happen on the way from point A to point B.
People love to feel important. Often, in order to speak with the head of a company or a member of government you’ll need to write a letter and coax the secretary into letting your unimportant self speak to her almighty boss. On the other hand, a phone call is always better than an email and a lot of importance is given to interpersonal interactions.
Despite the setbacks and the long list of things that need improvement, the atmosphere in the city is incredibly electric. Money flows and liquidity is high. It seems everyone is hustling, everyone has a side business, everyone has cash money. I get very excited when I see people my age opening their own businesses, acting on their ideas, helping each other out, and generally making a difference, however small.
The most important thing about hustling in Luanda is surrounding yourself with doers and believers – friends and associates who believe in themselves, their ideas and their capacity to help develop this country of ours.
Claudio Silva is Angolan. He has spent time in New York, Washington DC, Lisbon, Reading (UK) and attended university in Boston. In 2009, he started Caipirinha Lounge, a music blog dedicated to Lusophone music. Claudio contributes to several other blogs including Africa is a Countryand Central Angola 7311. Connect with him on Twitter.
