ICTworks by Inveneo

At the Africa Energy Awards 2010, the Barefoot Solar Engineers of Malawi won the Best Rural Electrification Project category, highlighting their positive impact on rural communities.

But they don't need a fancy award ceremony in South Africa to confirm their life-changing program that starts with a short training at the Barefoot College in India. Just watch this video:

As Clement Nyirenda explains, they are improving living conditions in many ways already:

The installation of solar electricity in these households has contributed greatly to the improvement of people’s livelihoods. The day for most of these households no longer ends at dusk, but like all of us privileged to have electricity, they now have a choice. School-going children are now able to study and do their homework even at night.

Availability of solar electricity has also enabled the households to save money, which they used to spend on buying other sources of lighting e.g. paraffin, candles. The money thus saved will go a long way in enabling the households to access the various other important needs for their households.

The fact that women, who used to be ordinary mothers in the village, are in the forefront of changing their communities shows that gender dynamics have changed in the villages.This will be a source of inspiration for many young Malawian women who are engaging in career paths that traditionally associated with men.

We've highlighted the Barefoot Solar Engineer program before. I can only hope it expands across Malawi and other countries in Africa too.

All across Nepal, and especially in Kathmandu, there is daily electrical system "load shedding" - which is a polite way of describing 10-14 hour blackouts across the city.

During the dry season, when there is not enough rainfall for full hydropower, the national utility company can only supply about 10 hours of electricity per day to portions of Kathmandu. To compensate for the blackouts, private companies have invested in battery backup systems to keep functioning during power outages.

Here, Niraj Gorkhali of Smart Solutions describes the battery system that allows his company to work, regardless of the grid power supply:

Note that this system can only provide an hour or two of backup during the worst of the load shedding because the power doesn't stay on long enough to full recharge the battery array.

How could Niraj improve his battery backup system to have greater usage?

While we at ICTworks focus on information and communication technologies to change the world, even I would agree that football has a larger impact on African adoption of ICT than any other activity - just vist any country during the World Cup and you'll see a nation fixed to TV, radio, and Internet to keep up with the action.

Making football history in Africa

And now Phillips has introduced what might be a revolution in African football - dedicated solar-powered LED floodlighting for football fields:

Using the very latest energy-efficient LED lighting technology, the system can illuminate areas up to 40x20m with bright white light. Advanced battery cells provide up to eight hours of floodlighting on a single solar charge – the equivalent of two or three full evening football matches or training sessions.

Better yet, we're not talking about some fragile immobile system - its fully mobile and highly sustainable, with a rugged design able to withstand the extreme rigors of life in some of the more challenging and remote terrains in the world - the football pitch in any African community!

At this year's Development Marketplace 2009 (DM2009) finalist event at the World Bank, I was asked a challenging question: What's the impact of ICT on climate change?

Of course, information and communication technologies help people learn about climate change and share ideas and responses, but ICT actually has a greater, and more direct impact than you might imagine. According to Gartner:

The global information and communications technology (ICT) industry accounts for approximately 2 percent of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, a figure equivalent to aviation, according to a new estimate by Gartner, Inc. Despite the overall environmental value of IT, Gartner believes this is unsustainable.

We at Inveneo agree - the developing world cannot continue to rely on dirty and expensive fossil fueled gasoline and diesel generators for the electrical power to run communication equipment.

Wayan Vota's DM2009 interview

That's why I answered the question like this:

@Inveneo's climate change impact: reducing reliance on diesel generators w/ energy efficient computing & access to green knowledge

How do we do that? By certifying and deploying energy efficient computers that are specifically designed to operate on renewable energies like wind and solar power. That's also why we certify Power Partners in addition to ICT Partners - clean electricity is just as important as the information it facilitates.

So the next time you are thinking about ICT deployment, especially in a rural or undeserved area where electrical power is an issue, remember that you do have a choice. You can reduce the impact of climate change directly and immediately, even before the community develops an awareness of global warming. When you choose renewable energy sources, not fossil fuels, to power your knowledge sharing ICTs.

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Last week, there was a countrywide blackout in Kenya. The electrical authority, KPLC, took the national electrical grid offline from around 6pm to around 11pm, local time due to a generator failure.

As you can imagine, this was a shock to the country and its national pride. Kenya thought itself immune to blackouts due to its hydropower system, which is now under duress after a multi-year drought. But amidst the chaos, there is an ICT lesson to learn. Just listen to what Moses Kemibaro did when the lights went out:

The first thing I did was whip out my smart phone and decided to get on Twitter and Facebook via Safaricom’s 3G connection that was working in spite of the blackout. In a matter of seconds, I had replies that it was not just in Westlands and Kileleshwa that had a blackout but that it was indeed countrywide!

This is kind of “peculiar” since even though I did not have access to television or radio the whole time, here I was able to get the latest news via the Internet on Twitter and Facebook on the extensive Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) blackout.

Alternate Kenyan power generation

So here we have a case study in how information and communication technology can delivery timely and needed news during a national crisis. Safaricom's voice and data systems were able to spread knowledge of the event via the Internet when traditional media were unable to, thanks to their backup distributed power systems.

And the surprise there? Many mobile phone operators generate their own power from wind and solar, as much as diesel generator. Inveneo ICIP WinAfrique and other power partners are equipping cell towers with alternate power solutions that work even with the national grid (or the sun) is down.

The national blackout might have another surprise as well - a Kenyan baby boom nine months from now. But only with non-geeks. Those wired, like Moses, didn't take advantage of a great opportunity to say:

"Hey baby, how you doing?"

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