Africa's Innovators

July 1, 2015 3:20 PM

As part of our special focus on innovation in Africa, we have developed a list of 40 remarkable African innovators. Actually, it’s more like 47 but we counted teams as one. Our decision to celebrate these idea creators and solution providers stems from our belief that the true wealth of Africa is not buried under its soil, but in the brains of its best minds. This list is a testament to that belief.

posted by infini (3 comments total)

The Saphonian is a brilliant development in harnessing wind energy, but the blurb about it is doing a great disservice by describing it as "essentially a wind turbine" - it removes the turbine elements to make a safer and more efficient generator. Sorry, I had to point that out - back to read the rest of the article. :)
posted by figment of my conation at 5:13 PM on July 1, 2015

Really interesting post, thanks. I'd heard of a couple of these and it's been illuminating to google some others. Such a shame Dr. Awojobi has died! The man was a hero.

Pics of Makoko and info on the floating school project.

There's a link to a case study about the solar cookers at the bottom of this page: The Mekhe Solar Cooker: Empowering Women One Community at a Time. (PDF)

It's great the list included artists and writers - I really loved finding out about Nnedi Okorafor. Off to the library for me.
posted by glasseyes at 5:52 AM on July 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

Contrary to public opinion, Africans had the highest degree attainment among immigrants even more than Asians, who are often seen as the “model minority.” ~ Pew
posted by infini at 9:03 AM on July 2, 2015