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By Paul Ndiho, Washington D.C

The democratic republic of Congo is set to overhaul its public transport network, with a fleet of new buses.  Public transportation in Congo is said to be among the worst in the region.  Many commuters are forced to travel in dilapidated vehicles that often leave them stranded– or even dead.

For years, residents in the Congo capital, Kinshasa, have struggled with a poor and unreliable public transportation.  Traveling across a city with ten million people can be a chaotic.  Commuters often have to push and shove just to get onto a bus– some even resort to climbing through the bus’s windows to hitch a ride.

One concerned resident says commuters often have no choice but to use the old and broken-down blue and yellow buses.

“The buses known as 207 (spirit of death) Are not road worthy. The seats are too small, and it feels cramped inside. We have risked accidents on several occasions, it is really risky to use.”

But this image is about change, the government recently introduced a new line of buses, called Transco. The new Mercedes-Benzes buses have a seating capacity of 55 and are much more spacious.

Jacques Henrique, Transco’s director-general, says they plan to expand the new initiative throughout the country.

“We will gradually increase the number of new buses. Well, as many as the government wants us to provide, until we reach a point where we have met all the requirements of Kinshasa’s public transport system and after that, we will then look into expanding into the rest of the country, to other major cities like kiktwit and Lubumbashi.”

Transportation analysts say this is good news for millions of Congolese residents who have suffered decades of conflict and neglect that virtually destroyed the nation’s infrastructure.

“A new mode of transport will brighten up the city, especially with the new buses, which are modern and luxurious. I have noticed that people are really happy about these new buses.”

“The new buses are just like a drop of water in the sea. I have been standing here for almost 30 minutes and i noticed that in those 30 minutes i have spent at the bus stop, only three new buses have passed by. Open your eyes, look at this road, you will see that nothing has changed, the challenges remain the same. I think that the government needs to make an effort and order new buses.”

The DRC has some of the world’s largest copper and cobalt reserves.  And rich deposits of coltan, tin and diamonds is expected to grow by eight-percent this year, brightening the nation’s outlook.  Investors have been deterred by poor infrastructure and institutions ravaged by decades of mismanagement and war.  But the government maintains that it is striving to strengthen economic governance and development, by improving the country’s roads and transport infrastructure.

To ensure the smooth transition of the new buses into service, the government implemented a new policy.

“We don’t want to completely phase out the “207” buses. What we want to do, which the government has also understood is to have in place an investment program, like the one that was set up in Dakar, Senegal that would go towards renovating public transport. Meaning a slow phasing out of these vehicles, which are rejects from Europe, and replace them with vehicles that support the needs of a city like this?”

The government-run company says it hopes to have a total of 500 new buses online by 2014– but critics say those numbers are unlikely to be reached because of corruption and mis-management by the government regulated industry.

By Paul Ndiho, Washington D.C.

Spark is a Nigerian-based internet business firm designed to support the successful development of entrepreneurial companies through an array of business support resources and services.  The firm is investing up to one million dollars in the development of aspiring Nigerian tech and internet startups. 

The arrival of the fiber-optic cable in West Africa has brought promises and expectations of a faster, more reliable, internet service.  Nigeria has West Africa’s largest economy and internet connectivity is spurring growth in the nation of more than 160 million people.  Spark is funding Nigerian entrepreneurs, who have unique ideas, but little resources.  With 1 million U.S. Dollars to invest, spark co-founder Bastian Gotter says the company will help tech entrepreneurs get started in Nigeria’s tough business environment.

“spark was established because there was an opportunity, it was also established because we thought there was a lack of people exploiting that opportunity so there was a lot of young entrepreneurs who were trying but Nigeria is not an easy place to do business, it’s difficult to establish a company; talking to CAC (corporate affairs commission) Takes three months, opening a bank account, running a gen (generator), getting an internet connection, paying two years upfront on your rent like all that stuff, it’s not very easy.”

Spark was created by Bastin Gotter– web entrepreneur Jason Njoku, the founder of iRoko, a multi-million-dollar web distribution platform for Nollywood productions– and his wife, Nigerian actress, Mary Remmy-Njoku.

The company was established in February 2013, with an initial investment of 2.5 million U.S. Dollars, and so far, spark has been able to successfully fund 10 companies.

“Spark will put some money to work, we’ll find great young entrepreneurs and we will fund them with money to explore all the opportunity that the internet is giving us.”

Kuluya’s games are designed to appeal to a Nigerian audience with experiences that residents can relate to. It has over 100-thousand people playing games on the website each month.

Kuluya initially received 250-thousand dollars from iRoko’s njoku and then was integrated into spark when the investor began operations.

Olakunle ogunbamila, chief executive officer for Kuluya says being part of spark has helped the company put innovation in a business perspective that had been lacking before.

“we have become a bit more focused in terms of what we want to achieve, there is now a careful cause on revenue generation which is what spark has been able to help us align, you know, the important thing for them is to be able to generate funds from whatever business that is on the spark so as a ceo, we are told to focus on how to generate revenue as against just innovating for the sake of innovation and that has really helped us in streamlining our business plan.”

Another spark beneficiary is Hotels.Ng– a company that provides a platform for customers to make hotel bookings online.

Hotels.Ng works with over 4,000 hotels across Nigeria and they receive a commission for each booking made through its website.

“In the space of three months, we have gone basically from one employee to twenty, the number of bookings that we have done has tripled, our site traffic has more than tripled so basically, a lot has changed.”

Some financial analysts say Nigeria’s e-commerce industry is young, but growing rapidly, with millions of dollars already invested by venture capitalists.

Bolaji Okusaga, a business analyst and entrepreneur says companies like iRoko TV, online shopping platforms are setting a fast pace for e-commerce growth in Nigeria.

“I can tell you for a fact that if you see the level of competition at play even in the e-commerce sphere, what with Jumia, Konga and all of the people who are just coming on board right now, that industry… You know, will not be less than a billion dollars as we speak and then you can then begin to look at it, when you begin to look at it in terms of geometric growth in the next five, in the next 10, in the next 15 years, you may have an industry that will be one of the largest generators of employment and you know creating possibilities that will also enhance the nation’s GDP.”

Developers and investors in tech businesses face the difficult challenge to build solutions that can benefit not just Nigeria’s rich and middle class but also penetrate the day-to-day lives of people with less disposable income.

Spark’s founders plan to invest in at least 10 more companies and hope that within five years, the startups they have funded will be making enough profits to generate returns on their investment, so they can take on more entrepreneurs.

By Paul Ndiho

Zambia’s increasingly vibrant economy and a growing middle class has seen more people go for smart phones lately and this is rapidly increasing the number of people who can access the internet via their phones.

Drive through downtown Lusaka, and you’ll see traders doing brisk business selling various goods, but what seems to stand out in every other street corner are the many shops opening up to sell mobile phones. The number of  Zambians accessing the internet through smart phones has increased rapidly over the last couple years.

Experts say that a booming mobile phone industry in Zambia means that there are more people with handsets than computers, facilitating access to the internet.

“Most of the customers that we have come through to purchase smart phones that have got internet not the ones without internet because nowadays people have migrated to smart phones that has got internet, so we don’t only have the high range, we also have got the cheaper range like the chat-triple-two which is a dual phone and we have launched our hero phone. Our hero phone is a small basic phone but it can connect you to the internet.”

The U.N.’s International Telecommunications Union says Africa has one of the highest growth rates of mobile phone subscriptions and that smartphone growth in Africa has increased by 43 per cent every year since 2,000. Experts say that 69 percent of mobiles in Africa will have internet access by 2014.

Victor Chaushi owns a smart mobile phone and says it has allowed him increased awareness of events happening around the world.

“If it comes to smart phones, I think they are making our lives easier, there is no need for you to go to the internet, all you have to do if somebody sends you an email is just click on your phone and you will be able to see whatever you want to do.”

Ngawo Nankonde, public relations manager for Zambia Information Communication Authority (ZICTA), says the country’s profile of internet users has shot up to 17 percent of the population.

“The introduction of smart phones has really been handy because people are able to have access to the internet without necessarily having to sit at a telecaster which has been set up with the help of ZICTA or any other institution for that matter and we know that especially the youth are the biggest users of these smart phones.”

Nankonde added that domestic mobile telephony in Zambia was set to grow by 80 percent by the end of 2013 and services would expand within other parts of the country.

Zambia has 8 million mobile phone users at the moment, with internet access becoming increasingly available through mobile phones fewer people now depend on internet cafes affecting profits made for some business owners.

“Smart phones have affected our business in that the more people get acquainted with them, the less they need an internet cafe like ours to come and view their internet.”

Banks in the country are also cashing in on the affordable internet connections and are encouraging their clients to use mobile banking.

“Barclays has taken advantage of that as well, and look how we can extend the already existing banking services. So right now, there is what we call Barclays banking mobile, and Barclays tablet banking, where a customer can basically download an application.”

Currently a simple budget smartphone produced for the African market are available on the streets for as little as fifty US dollars.

By Paul Ndiho

Let’s go to Nigeria, where women in Lagos who like to shop, but are worried about what to wear and their make-up, now have a new way to help them look more attractive.  Paul Ndiho reports, “fashion on wheels” has rolled into town and it’s giving women a shopping experience, right at their door steps.

By Paul Ndiho

Are you ready to ride in the back seat in a driverless car?  Well, researchers at a university in the U.S. State of Pennsylvania are putting the finishing touches on their version of a driverless car that may lay the groundwork for computers to replace humans in the driver’s seat.

Scholars at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh are making a bold entrance into the technology scene with a new state of the art Cadillac prototype– the most advanced example of driverless car ever produced. The Cadillac s-u-v looks like any other ordinary car on the road. But unlike other cars, this one drives itself. Professor Raj RajKumar and his research engineering team have been working on the autonomous car since 2000, with more than $11 million dollars of funding from both the national science foundation and auto giant general motors.

RajKumar says driverless cars will one day be the norm, replacing the single biggest cause of traffic accidents on the road– human drivers.

“Over 93 percent of accidents in cars happen due to human error. People are distracted, they are sleepy maybe angry, looking at something else or they may even be drunk. If we can basically take the human out of the driving equation distractions will go away and computer will not get distracted because they are not human. So, therefore we can minimize those accidents and we can slowly take those accidents towards zero,”

Nearly all of the major car producers globally are researching driverless car technologies with plans to phase in autonomous controls over the next 10 years.  Mercedes Benz plans to offer their s-class model with autonomous capabilities like steering, braking, and parking within two years. Google’s driverless car research program has logged more than 300,000 miles on roads, mostly in the U.S. State of Nevada, where the first license for an autonomous vehicle was issued two years ago. Florida and California have also started working on legislation concerning driverless cars.

The Carnegie Mellon Cadillac model is equipped with a host of sensory technologies including lasers, cameras and radar, all of which feed their data into four onboard computers, giving the vehicle a picture of its surroundings and possible dangers in real time.  It also uses GPS and wireless technology, to give its autonomous navigation controls a sense of direction. RajKumar says the viability of a driverless car also depends on creating a network where cars can communicate with each other as well as with traffic controls on the road.

Raj RajKumar, professor of electrical and computer engineering, Carnegie Mellon university:

“It talks to the traffic lights. You see the status of the traffic lights as we go by. It is actually talking to them wirelessly.”

He says the car’s sense of awareness is far superior to that of a human driver– especially in dangerous road conditions.

Raj RajKumar, professor of electrical and computer engineering, Carnegie Mellon university:

“Suppose you are driving at night and the streetlights are off and the headlights start blinking and they die just to take an extreme example. We as humans can not perceive anymore but if the car is outfitted with a thermal imaging camera, a heat-sensing device it can actually see if there is a human or an animal in front of the car. The computer can actually detect that and stop the car. We humans can’t perceive the obstacle but the computer has,”

The Carnegie Mellon team is still working on proving that their driverless car can reliably handle all of the variables and complexities involved in what seems like ordinary drive down the road.

But RajKumar says he is confident that by the year 2020– his autonomous car will be ready for the road.  But he says getting people comfortable with the idea of letting their car’s technology take control and drive them around may take a little longer

Originally from the Republic of the Gambia in West Africa, Dr. Sulayman S. Nyang, Ph.D.’s career as an Africanist and professor of African Studies at Howard University spans more than 40 years. Professor Nyang has published profusely on a variety of issues affecting Africans in Africa, the diaspora, and beyond. He has also written extensively on Islam, African politics, culture, and social and economic development on the continent. VOA’s video journalist Paul Ndiho takes us behind the scenes as he profiles the professor.  Who shares with us his thoughts about his tirelessly work for African causes, and how he continues to mentor younger scholars, through intellectual collaboration.

For those who live in Washington DC metro area this is probably not a surprise, more than 30% of Cab drivers in the district are from Ethiopia, more than any other country.   Many of them are also professionals in their own right but also do driving taxis as part-time job.  Africa 54 Video Journalist Paul Ndiho recently went behind the scenes to see for himself what it takes to juggle through traffic as cab driver in one of the busiest cities in the world. And he profiles Assegid Ggossa, a professional I .T Specialist and a part time taxi driver who in his own words tells us the secrets behind the booming industry.

By Paul Ndiho

Many Africans use charcoal for cooking but the effects over the years have been disastrous for the continent’s forests. However, in Kenya, an energy saving cooking stove fueled entirely by trash is making a buzz on both the local and international scene.

A revolutionary cooker invented in Kenya and powered entirely by garbage has won several international ingenuity awards. The giant stove has transformed the lives of people living in several poor communities in the east African country.  Now, orders for the cooker are flowing in from abroad, as far as Britain and Bali.

Families used to spend hours bending over a hot smokey charcoal stove preparing their meals.

The stove uses plastic bags, food cartons, cardboard boxes, old clothes and other discarded rubbish found in slums in and around Naivasha, a market town located in Kenya’s rift valley region.  The giant furnace burns plastics and other garbage at 800 degrees centigrade– and the energy generated is then used to fuel a giant cooker.  The home grown rubbish burning stove was introduced to the community six months ago and already it has helped to provide a cleaner environment and a faster, cheaper way for people to cook food.

“It saves me money because i don’t use paraffin. I come here with my food, I cook and then I go home.”

The stove was invented by architects at the design firm, planning systems services in Nairobi.  Getting the cooker to heat the rubbish at temperatures high enough to burn off any noxious fumes took several years to perfect.  A prototype for the cooker was finally built last year and since then the design has picked up several international innovation awards.

Janice Muthui, who heads the foundation set up to run the project, says the interest it has attracted internationally has been great for the company, but persuading people that garbage can be used as fuel is always a challenge.

“We know that it’s sound, that the technology is sound and we’re getting all these awards, international awards because they really do believe in the technology but now what we really need to do are get the community on board. Of course we’ve had issues, people thinking… Rubbish, cooking my food… I mean my old socks could actually be making my next meal you know. So those are the kind of things that we have to try and overcome and we’re still working on it.”

The first people to buy into the idea were the owners of a flower farm in Naivasha. The farm generates a lot of waste and many of the workers live in nearby slums where people are often forced to live alongside piles of trash.

The farm bought a cooker to help improve lives of its workers and bring the fair-trade company in line with international eco-friendly standards.

David Musyoka from the flower farm group says it has been so transformative for his community, that he hopes the idea will spread to other parts of the country.

“If it can be built everywhere in Kenya in each county if it can get this, everywhere will be clean,”

So far, there are two cookers operating in Naivasha and another one in Nairobi’s Kibera slum. Environmentalists say this could potentially change the way people use the traditional means of cooking because it’s cleaner and cheaper.  Kenya is among the countries that are looking to develop its geothermal, wind, solar, hydropower– and its home grown fuel-efficient cook stoves.

By Paul Ndiho

The World Bank says that Kenya’s semi-arid north is enduring longer and more frequent periods of drought due to climate change.  As a result, traditional cattle-herding communities who have roamed the region for centuries now have to farm vegetables as well, to provide food for their families.

In Turkana, northern Kenya, about 15 farmers are attending a class on vegetable farming. The farmers are enrolled in a training program known as ‘furrows in the desert’ designed to teach communities to grow more vegetables, fruits and crops to improve food supply for their families.

The project was started by Kenyan and Israeli volunteers in 2012 to better prepare communities for the effects of climate change.

In recent years, severe droughts have vastly reduced the region’s water supply, so the pastoralists are learning how to set up irrigation systems to take advantage of the water they have, and ensure that crops get the proper amount of water.

“i didn’t know the importance of manure but now i understand its benefits. I will go home and educate others on its use and show them how to farm and weed and make sure they understand the importance of manure.”

The people of Turkana traditionally keep livestock as a way of life, and have lived in this semi-arid part of the country for centuries, but over the years, dry spells and violent cattle raids between them and their neighbors has been a major threat to their herds.

Turkana remains one of the poorest regions in Kenya, and the government, as well as various aid agencies, is trying to get more pastoralists to farm over 300 acres of land in addition to keeping their animals.

The farmers are also taught how to control pests, trap water, create dams and determine the best methods of rehabilitating land for future harvests.

The project is targeting about 140-thousand people who live in Turkana, hoping that they can quickly replicate the farming model in their communities so they can grow crops.

Residents are beginning to reap benefits and some like Lucy Mutunga say the difference is obvious and that the quality and quantity of crops harvested is encouraging.

“I planted on the 2nd of January but now I’m harvesting, my crop yield is fair. During the first planting season, i harvested 30kgs for a plot of 250 meters square.”

For now, the food production remains for subsistence, but over time farmers hope to increase their returns and find a marketplace in Kenya for their produce.

By farming and keeping livestock, the people of Turkana will be in a better position to increase their food stocks, and ensure that their families are not hungry.