The Unlimited Child ~ Toys for African Creches...

Videojournalist Ruud Elmendorp posts about The Unlimited Child...

Homeboyz ~ Ruud Spots Kenyan Media Venture

Thanks to Dutch Videojournalist Ruud Elmendorp for his latest story about Myke Rabar and Homeboyz Entertainment, a fast-growing Kenyan media production house...

Sega Silicon Valley ~ Elmendorp Spots ICT Impact

Thanks to Videojournalist Ruud Elmendorp for his latest story -- on Sega Silicon Valley -- the efforts by Kenyan expat entrepreneur James Ofwona and colleagues to bring ICT connectivity to his home village and region...

Shujaaz ~ Elmendorp on Kenya's Young Heroes

Thanks to Videojournalist Ruud Elmendorp for his latest story about Shujaaz, a new illustrated comic in Kenya about youth as Heroes... Throughout the comic are real-world situations and realities which appeal to the reader's interest. And woven throughout are "how to" illustrations, such as coloring your chicks pink so prey-birds don't grab them, and this sequence with character Maria Kim where she's walking towards a market and sees a verdant garden... The wise lady owner-gardener shows how to do it herself... Leading to growing results a few months later...

Tullow Oil ~ Fueling Ugandan Prosperity?

Dutch videojournalist Ruud Elmendorp covered Tullow Oil recently, reporting that Uganda oil findings to benefit all, says government... P.S. FYI, interesting follow-up article in The Times by Robin Pagnamenta about Tullow CEO and Founder Aidan Heavey, Monday mainifesto: From streetfighter to big hitter.

Fastest Meets Fastest ~ Usain Bolt + Cheetah!-)

Ruud spots World's Fastest Man adopting World's Fastest Cat!

XO Progress ~ Towards One Laptop Per Child

Thanks to the Economist for highlighting Education in Uruguay ~ Laptops for All...

"Nearly all of Uruguay’s 380,000 primary-school pupils have now received a simple and cheap XO laptop, a model developed by One Laptop Per Child, an NGO based in Massachusetts. The government hopes this will help poorer and disadvantaged children do better in school while also improving the overall standard of education. These ambitions will be tested for the first time later this month when every Uruguayan seven-year-old will take online exams in a range of academic subjects. The rest of the world should be intrigued: the first country in Latin America to provide free, compulsory schooling will become the first, globally, to find out whether furnishing a whole generation with laptops is a worthwhile investment."

Certainly there are challenges, as the article goes on to note, but it's excellent to see this effort be tried at scale. And XO's are being deployed in several countries. Thanks to Dutch videojournalist Ruud Elmendorp for spotlighting Small Machine, Big Mission: The XO laptop exciting children in Kibwezi, rural Kenya...

Simu ya Solar ~ Cutting the Last Cord in Kenya

Thanks to Dutch videojournalist Ruud Elmendorp for spotlighting the new Safaricom Simu ya Solar phone in Kenya... Apparently it is selling well. And as I wrote about last month, this solar solution cuts the last cord and is part of a growing wave of off-grid innovations.

Kenyan Mines Shut ~ Economic Ripple Effects...

Dutch videojournalist Ruud Elmendorp spotlights the economic challenges facing the commodity material sector in Kenya in this story about mines shutting down and the resulting ripple effect throughout the business ecosystem...

Iko Toilets ~ Kenyan Entrepreneur David Kuria...

Dutch videojournalist Ruud Elmendorp tells the entrepreneurial story of David Kuria, owner of Iko Toilets, clean safe restrooms, minimarts, and increasingly entertainment hubs for urban Kenya...

Green African ~ Plastics Recycler Evans Githinji...

Dutch videoreporter Ruud Elmendorp tells the entrepreneurial story of Evans Githinji, founder of Green Africa, a plastic waste recycling venture in Nairobi, Kenya turning trash into building materials... See here the Rocketboom link.

Boda Bodas ~ Affordable Scooters Move Kenyans

Dutch videoreporter Ruud Elmendorp tells the entrepreneurial story of the rise of affordable motor scooters in Kenya, the Boda Bodas...

"Is it a menace, or affordable transport? Cheap motor bikes from China take over Kenyan roads"...

Banks are loaning the $1-2,000 which scooter operators can pay back in a half-year or so by renting out their transport services. Naturally the taxi operators are upset. And competitive pressures are driving rates down. But overall this seems to be a case of affordability triumphing.

Future Journalists ~ Cameras for Kibera in Kenya

Excellent to see Videoreporter Ruud Elmendorp spotlight aspiring Kenyan journalists like Julius Kasyoka with Cameras for Kibera...

Informal Sector ~ Meet The Kenyan Metalworkers

Dutch videoreporter Ruud Elmendorp tells the entrepreneurial story of the informal metalworking sector in Kenya...

Matatus ~ Creative Minibus System in Kenya

Videoreporter Ruud Elmendorp tells the story of Matatus in Kenya and the decoration designers who spice up these minibusses... I especially like that Ruud spotlights a couple of the Kenyan designers and how their creative initiative is the basis for business and employment.

M-PESA ~ No-Card ATM Cash Transfers in Kenya

Videoreporter Ruud Elmendorp tells the story of M-PESA money transfers using mobile phones in Kenya... As Noel Mwakugu of the BBC wrote about last year, this M-PESA service by Safaricom and Vodafone is available to anyone, even if they do not have a bank account or a bankcard.

Bio-Latrines ~ Human Waste-to-Biogas in Kibera

Videoreporter Ruud Elmendorp reports about Cooking On Gas From Human Waste in Kibera, an extremely poor district in Nairobi, Kenya. The Bio-Latrine project provides...

"Something positive coming from human waste. The population keeps growing, but there are hardly any toilets because of no sewage system. Public toilets are rare. A local organization constructed latrines. From the waste they make biogas. The gas is used to cook..."

Watch Ruud's Bio-Latrine Kibera videoreport for yourself...(This biogas stove flames photo by Kai Ross, btw.)

In the domain of off-grid energy and environmental solutions, I'm very interested in the prospect for both household-scale micro-utilities -- for instance, MIT alum development venture FertilGas supplying biodigestors for farm waste-to-gas in Honduras, a clean-burning fuel to replace wood -- as well as village-scale or slum neighborhood-scale mini-utilities -- for instance, this Bio-Latrines Kibera project, which both is more sanitary and supplies fuel-gas, or another MIT alum development venture blueEnergy supplying off-grid wind-power and clean water solutions in rural Nicaragua.

Village Phone ~ Ruud Elmendorp on MTN Uganda

Interesting video-essay on the dynamics of MTN Uganda's Village Phone businesses by Rocketboom's Ruud Elmendorp...