Mechanical Technology may 2015

Mechanical Technology — May 2015

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Innovative engineering

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Africa Prize

The Nanofilter business plan is for community centres

to become water hubs, filtering and selling water that

is accessible to the most isolated and under-serviced

communities. Hilonga is shown here installing filters at

Gongali Empower Community Centre.

Samuel Wangui’s Chura airtime switch app enables

Kenyans to ‘leap’ airtime between mobile carriers.

aluminium unit, but the Africa Prize

process made me think to add functions

I had never even thought of,” he says. “I

will always be grateful to the Academy

for the knowledge I have gained through

the Africa Prize.”

The Draadsitter works off batteries

that last up to three years. It isn’t affected

by harsh weather or set-off by the sound

or flash of thunder and lightning, and has

now been tested on fences with up to 22

rows of wiring.

Over the last six months, Pretorius’

innovation has attracted interest from

game famers, conservationists and

companies across Africa. The product

is now in pre-production phase, and

should begin rolling out by mid-2015.

As for commercial viability, Pretorius is

excited, but has learnt from his mentors

to be careful.

Low-cost sustainable water

filter system

Askwar Hilonga, The Nelson Mandela

African Institute of Science & Technol-

ogy, Tanzania

Imagine living near an expansive water

source, yet paying for expensive, bottled

drinking water because the river or

lake serving the community is polluted.

This widespread problem is what led a

38-year-old Tanzanian engineer to experi-

ment with sand-based water filters and

nanotechnology.

After an impressive 33 publications

on his trademarked Nanofilter, Hilonga

is developing his business plan for an

innovation that could change the lives of

thousands of Africans. Each Nanofilter is

bespoke, and absorbs the contaminants

that are present in a specific body of

water – from heavy metals or minerals

such as copper and fluoride, to biologi-

cal contaminants such as bacteria and

viruses or pollutants such as pesticides.

Hilonga is a chemical engineer and

lecturer at the Nelson Mandela African

Institution of Science and Technology.

Described by the institution as a “very

prolific young Tanzanian chemical en-

gineer”, his aim is to inspire Africans

to empower their own communities.

Using his knowledge of nanotechnology,

Hilonga essentially modernised the tradi-

tional sand-filtration methods still widely

in use to purify water.

Hilonga is also the director of a univer-

sity spin-off company called the Gongali

Model Company, with the Nanofilter as

one of the projects showing how research

can be used in everyday life.

The Nanofilter business plan is for

community centres to become water

hubs, filtering and selling water that

is accessible to the most isolated and

under-serviced communities. Here, the

water can be purified, and water-borne

diseases controlled.

Since embarking on the Africa Prize

journey, Hilonga’s project has been grant-

ed an interest-free loan, filter components

have been donated to the company for

the initial rollout of 100 filters to test his

business model, and a prototype is be-

ing used at the Gongali Model Company

Community Centre.

Hilonga has more than 30 orders

for home-based Nanofilters, 23 en-

trepreneurs ready to set up their own

businesses with the filters, and six local

schools set to provide their learners with

clean drinking water.

The multi-network mobile

phone service

Samuel Njuguna Wangui, University of

Nairobi, Kenya

In much of Africa, mobile phone signal

strength is inconsistent. As a result, most

data and mobile phone users have at

least two SIM cards to ensure they can

always connect to at least one network.

This means airtime is often trapped on a

SIM card that isn’t in use, and locked-into

a particular provider.

This is what inspired the Chura app,

a web-based application designed by

27-year old Kenyan software engineer

Samuel Njuguna. The app was developed

after Njuguna and four friends – now his

innovation teammates – experienced this

very problem while trying to

finish a university project on

time.

Chura – the Swahili word

for frog – enables Kenyans to

‘leap’ airtime between mobile

carriers, buy airtime in more

convenient denominations,

and even exchange it for cash.

Njuguna and his team

worked on the application for

a full year before it was com-

mercially viable, and Chura

has now been chosen as a

finalist in the first Africa Prize

for Engineering Innovation.

After initial challenges in getting a

digital technology recognised, the Chura

application now has a copyright and

is supported by several mobile carriers

operating in Kenya.

Initially marketed to students, Chura

has made around 15 000 transactions in

the last 14 months, with a 60% return-

customer rate. During the six months of

mentoring and training provided as part

of the Africa Prize by the UK’s Royal

Academy of Engineering, the application

has evolved even further. The team is

working on a mobile app, they’ve reduced

the number of steps required to use the

service, and introduced a new website.

The training by the Royal Academy

taught the Chura team, part of the

University of Nairobi’s C4DLab Start-up

Incubation Programme, to collect cus-

tomer data and base company decisions

on this, rather than on intuition alone.

Now, Njuguna says, they track customer

behaviour to find out where there are

bugs that need fixing.

One of these four engineering innova-

tions will win £25 000 when the first

Africa Prize winner is announced in Cape

Town on 1 June 2015, with £10 000 for

each runner-up.