Nur Ahmad Furlong

Tag: power_crisis

  • AfriGadget » Dr. Ngalande’s Sugar & Yeast Generator

    Dr. Ngalande’s Sugar and Yeast Power Generator

    Just off chatting with White Africa, A.K.A. Hash, blog master of AfriGadget.com who lives in the US. I thought I’d take another look at AfriGadget and see if I can find anything which sparks my interest.

    Step onto the scene a Sugar & Yeast Powered Generator

    cedricks_generator This invention(by Dr. Cedrick Ngalande’s) has massive implications for South Africa, not only directly related to the problem of charging of mobile phones in rural settings but in general, for the energy crisis we are experiencing locally.

    This shows that Africans are very much innovating and working towards solutions to some of the most crucial problems mankind will be facing in the very near future.

    “The rotor moves slowly most of the times but does pick up at certain intervals. This process continues for many hours. Since the rotor is quite heavy (and hence more inertia) a small geared DC motor can be connected to the rotor to generate power for cell phones, $100 laptops, and other things in Africa. People can leave this thing to charge their phones/$100 laptops overnight.”

    The blog post where I found this little invention has a hot commenting debate about the actual viability of the invention, but like “Hash” the blog author responded, we need to be talking about what people are doing and maybe by spreading the word others can contribute and help build on these ideas.

    Anyone out there know of any other cool low tech energy solutions? All I can say is Go Africa, Go!!

  • Ad Designed with no electricity, Ogilvy tackles Power Crisis

    I found this interesting story on biz-community.com

    Ogilvy Cape Town’s art director Jennifer Macfarlane and copy writer Cuan Cronwright are the winners of The Times Young Creatives Competition, held 23 – 26 February 2008 at this year’s Design Indaba Expo.

    Winning Ad Designed without using any electricity

    A PR stunt no doubt saw creatives pitting their skills against each other in a fishbowl style space with Public onlookers. Pity the procedings had to be screened on Plasma screens which would have used a fair amount of power themselves. Kind of defeats the purpose a little but I suppose it was about driving a message home and this little stunt certainly did that.

    The winning agency was rewarded with a full page ad they can use for any pro bono client of their choice worth about R50000. Check out the article with all the details.