AfriGadget shows that innovation can't be stifled

If there is anything recent history has taught us here at Beck’s Cafe it’s that you can only keep people’s spirits and imaginations bound down for so long.  In the end, they have to come out.  And so the latest example is technology out of Africa.

Now we know what you are thinking, “Technology and Africa” do not seem self evident on the surface.  Africa and Natural Resources or Africa and Food (when there is no hellacious drought) or Africa and Nigerian Internet Scams.  But Africa and Technology?  Yep.  They do.

And they do because ther are smart people everywhere on our planet and there are problems everywhere and many times smart people will solve their own problems.  Case in point for AfriGadget, a web site devoted to this topic:

• The photo at the beginning of this post is of a student who invented an automated fishing machine
• Another inventive group has come up with a way to charge mobile phones using bikes and scrap
• And yet another invention harvests water from volcanic steam vents

All in all, some pretty amazing technologies using local talent and resources to solve real local problems.  Smart people and smart solutions.