Informal standardization in African DIY
AfriGadget reports on informal standardization practices among African machinists and fabricators:
One of the things that I find most interesting in my travels around Africa is the similar uses of technology to meet the varied demands of different types of mechanics and workers. The particular case I’ve been thinking over is the use of a simple frame and different engines to meet a specific need.
Many of the same components are used from one machine to the next. The fabricators know that each machine has a different use, but that the parts used to make them unique are not that many....
The machinery setup is a good example of low-cost fabrication using a modular setup. All of the local fabricators tend to use the same frame setup so that they can mix and match with each others work.
This is significant because we're starting to see stories of African inventors doing interesting things, and observations like this remind us that most inventive activity involves independent but not completely solitary inventors: successful inventors tend to be members of communities of practice, who share ideas and technical skills, and have to work together. They compete, but they also have to cooperate.
Tags:Hypotheses that reference this signal:
Forecasts that reference this signal:
| Title | Author | Excerpt |
|---|---|---|
| Success of lone inventors in Africa giving rise to an infant "ingenuity" movement | Gregg Zachary | In Africa, lone inventors are starting to thrive under adverse conditions, raising hopes that a rise in bottoms-up innovations will produce a viable “ingenuity” movement. The activities of science and engineering are increasingly organized around teams, but in resource-starved, brain-drain devastated Africa, the lone wolf is using cheap digital tools, and old-tech grit, to lay the foundation for what might be a flowering of old-fashioned human ingenuity. |