Oct 01 2020
This project is funded by InnovateUK, the UK’s Innovation Agency. In the communities in which SVRG works, improving education is a high priority. Rural schools are often overcrowded, difficult to reach, and poorly resourced. Teachers are poorly paid, resulting in high rates of absenteeism among teachers at government schools. Existing educational material (for example free …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/sustainable-offgrid-edtech-for-education-continuity-and-outcomes-in-the-developing-world/
Oct 01 2020
STI4D, a sister company to SVRG, is carrying this project out jointly with our NGO partners in Tanzania, Orkonerei Maasai Social Initiatives (OMASI). This project is funded by InnovateUK, the UK’s Innovation Agency. Access to good healthcare is often challenging in the developing world, but this is greatly compounded for people living in remote off-grid …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/innovative-access-to-healthcare-for-impact-in-remote-communities/
Sep 30 2020
The community radio station: Orkonerei Radio Service (ORS FM), is the first Maasai pastoralists’ radio and was established to better communicate with the Maasai in Terrat, Simanjiro district. For many Maasai who don’t understand Kiswahili or Maasai, it’s their only source of information and important for education on health and agriculture. At their peak, ORS …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/a-wood-mounted-solar-array-for-the-tanzanias-maasai-radio-station/
Sep 23 2020
Three days before our recent flight to Tanzania, we’d received word that the inverter installed at our 50kW solar array in Ormoti had stopped working. The local electrician was sent in to take a look, and found a lizard had somehow managed to crawl inside and fried its brains. He removed the lizard, thinking it …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/animals-in-the-electronics/
Sep 23 2020
This post was written new SVRG team member Natasha, on her first day on site in the communities in Tanzania: We arrived at the Ormoti site, to scenes of Maasai men sat around, wrapped in their traditional cloth. The solar array installed by Bernie, Anna and Arran previously was way bigger than I’d imagined, with …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/first-impressions-at-ormoti-and-a-maasai-welcome/
Mar 02 2020
One thing that the Smart Villages model is based on is the notion of “appropriate technology” – that is the use of technologies that are specified and optimised based on their context and utility, rather than their absolute efficiency or performance. The classic example is the use of, say, an off-the-shelf lead acid battery instead …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/innovation-africa-style/
Jan 07 2020
So let’s start by stepping back a little. Our innovative partners, OMASI, have set up a number of different productive, social and community projects on their main site in the village of Terat in the Simanjiro District of Tanzania. There’s a shop, a community meeting hall, and a hostel (originally set up as somewhere for …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/unbalanced-3-phase-power-nearly-killed-the-radio/
Dec 13 2019
We were delighted to find that one of the many amazing things about working in the Maasai Plains of Simanjiro District, south of Arusha, is the indigenous baobab trees. The baobab, Adansonia digitata, is native to Africa, and classes as one of the biggest trees in the world. Whilst they “only” reach 25-30m in height, …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/welcome-to-big-tree-country/
Nov 20 2019
For the Maasai, the traditional living unit is the boma. This is an extended, or multi-family compound surrounded by a thorn hedge (usually), which will contain between 3 and 10 houses. There is an inner circular compound, also surrounded by a thorn hedge, to keep the livestock safe during the night. Satellite photos of the …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/solar-boma-systems-should-be-a-thing/
Jul 04 2017
[:en] Interview with Leena Chandran-Wadia Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation Location: Bangalore, India “The day we can say that every home is electrified is very far away” ‘Kerala is totally electrified!’ run the headlines in the Indian papers. It’s a claim many Indian villages make, says Dr. Leena Chandran-Wadia, the Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/leena-chandran-wadia-senior-fellow-observer-research-foundation/
Sep 15 2016
Long Lamai is a Penan village in upper Baram, northern Sarawak, of Malaysian Borneo. Travelling to the settlement from the nearest town Miri takes eight hours on rough logging roads and an hour of hiking through the dense rainforest. Alternately, it is reachable by flying from Miri to Long Banga by an hour’s flight via …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/not-village-people-long-lamai-case-study-smart-village/
Jul 06 2016
There are 65.3 million forcibly displaced people and 21.3 million refugees, hosted across the world (UNHCR). “Few forcibly displaced people” have access to modern energy. Out of 8.7 million refugees and displaced people in camps, only 11% have access to “reliable energy sources for lighting” (Chatham House, 2015). However, forcibly displaced people and refugees are …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/energy-displaced-communities-smart-villages-help/
May 12 2016
South Asian governments would do well to integrate off-grid with grid options in their quest to achieve universal electrification, says a new study. “The governments prefer to extend the grid even to those regions in which renewable energy sources are available in plenty,” says Debajit Palit, associate director, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/off-grids-can-power-south-asian-electrification/
Jan 11 2016
In late 2015 a Cambridge-based nonprofit released the Raspberry Pi Zero, a tiny £4 computer that was a whole £26 cheaper than the original 2012 model. The Zero is not only remarkable for its own sake – a computer so cheap it comes free with a £5.99 magazine – it is also symptomatic of a …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/jaideep-prabhu-cambridge-judge-business-school-discusses-the-frugal-innovation-revolution-that-is-taking-the-world-by-storm/
Sep 16 2015
What questions does the typical fifteen-year-old city Malaysian ask? ‘Should I look for a job this school holiday?’ ‘What do I want to do in the future? Go into business or work for someone?’ ‘Should I pick the science or art stream for school next year?’ ‘Should I continue my tertiary education locally or overseas?’ …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/opportunities-in-bario-made-me-want-to-come-home-to-malaysia/
Sep 10 2015
Kenyan farmers have been travelling to the Nakuru National Agricultural Show every year since 1920. These days you need to arrive early if you want to avoid the lengthy queues to purchase an entry ticket. You can tell when the show has officially opened from the throngs of people, rickety matatus and crowds of motorcycles …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/bursting-with-energy-nakuru-agricultural-show/
Aug 20 2015
Nakuru town was once dubbed ‘the cleanest town in East Africa’ but it lost that title many years ago. As you approach the town from Nairobi, you join a long procession of aged cargo trucks belching jet black exhaust fumes, reducing the air quality and staining roadside buildings. The town is, however, taking steps to …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/kenya-spots-geothermal-potential-in-the-menegai-crater/
Aug 12 2015
DAREnterprisers is run by Cambridge University based volunteering group Cambridge Development Initiative (CDI)—a student run organisation that prides itself on its on-the-ground decision-making and human centred design. The CDI partnered with Smart Villages and others to address growing youth unemployment in East Africa, taking advantage of the impetus for economic change and growth in the …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/what-is-darenterprisers-and-what-have-you-been-up-to/
Aug 06 2015
I once visited my local newspaper printing press. The machinery was immense. Two tonne rolls of paper were fed continuously into the ink rollers at fantastic speed. Conveyer belt contraptions whizzed partially folded newspapers around the factory with a frenetic industriousness. The whole apparatus would spit out 12 newspapers a second. Now imagine that it …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/what-does-perovskite-mean-for-the-photovoltaic-industry/
Jul 16 2015
I once stood in the courtyard of an apartment house in Mombasa, Kenya, watching residents try to chase off mosquitoes using the fumes from burning cow dung. Children near to the fumes were crying but, in a country where mosquito-born diseases such as Malaria and Dengue Fever kill tens of thousands per year, the discomfort …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/advanced-measures-for-mosquito-control-by-insecticide-vaporisers/
