Blog Watch: Afrigadget.com

We love Afrigadget.com as it sums up everything Ivili is all about. Both a blog and a website, it's 'dedicated to showcasing African ingenuity'. In a mix of blogs, videos and photo stories, it profiles inspiring innovators and their projects from across the continent, and we've already featured a few of their videos on the site, such as these Kenyans making bellows out of cement bags and this ingenious bicycle powered knife sharpening machine.
They also have a plan, very similar to ivili's long term goal, to enable people across Africa to contribute their stories of local successes and innovations. They call it 'The Grassroots Reporting Project', and as they explain on their site:

"The Grassroots Reporting Project is our plan to find, equip and train more AfriGadget reporters in the field throughout Africa.

AfriGadget Grassroots Reporting ProjectAfriGadget’s goal is to leverage the power of current and emerging technology such as video cameras, digital cameras, laptops and phones to bring quality content online and eventually on television.

A combination of mobile phones and computers will be assigned to individuals in 10 African countries for the purpose of getting more on-the-ground reporting of stories of African ingenuity to the world. An AfriGadget editor will be in charge of identifying the best candidates for inclusion in the program. This editor will also travel to each country to train and equip the new AfriGadget reporters for the program."

We love what they are doing, are inspired by how well recognised they are - it helps us to believe that ivli.org could grow to be successful too, and we hope to complement them in what they do.