Category: Science &Technology

It sounds like science fiction: unmanned drones carrying emergency medicine zooming above the rolling hills of Rwanda.

But there are proposals – including one by the eminent British architect Norman Foster – to set up “cargo drone routes capable of delivering urgent and precious supplies to remote areas on a massive scale”, and the East African nation of Rwanda has been chosen as a test case.

Droneland: where hobbyists rule the skies
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“Specialist drones can carry blood and life-saving supplies over 100km [60 miles] at minimal cost, providing an affordable alternative that can complement road-based deliveries,” the proposal reads.

Rwanda, left in ruins after genocide in 1994, has rapidly rebuilt. The government has pushed initiatives to boost technology, and the powerful president, Paul Kagame, dreams of turning the capital, Kigali, into a regional hub for investors and multinational companies.

Government efforts have rapidly pushed mobile phone and internet coverage across the landlocked nation, but the rolling landscape of a nation described as the “land of a thousand hills” means physical access to some areas is more challenging.

The proposal – by architecture firm Foster + Partners, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and its linked Afrotech initiative– hopes to see drones with a three-metre (10-foot) wingspan able to carry deliveries weighing 10kg (22lb).

Drones with a six-metre wingspan, capable of carrying payloads of 100kg, are planned to follow by 2025.

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“Africa is a continent where the gap between the population and infrastructural growth is increasing exponentially,” Foster said at the project launch earlier this month.

“The dearth of terrestrial infrastructure has a direct impact on the ability to deliver life-giving supplies, indeed where something as basic as blood is not always available for timely treatment. We require immediate bold, radical solutions.”

The pilot project is slated to begin next year, with three “drone-port” buildings due for completion by 2020. The drones will be able to cover almost half of Rwanda’s countryside.

Although Rwanda’s government has yet to comment on the proposals, people have welcomed the plan.

“The introduction of drones can add to the many solutions we have available to tackle infrastructure challenges in Rwanda,” Junior Sabena Mutabazi wrote in the pro-government New Times newspaper.

Rwanda, small, tightly controlled and with modern infrastructure only in key hubs, offers the chance to test case cargo drones before possible expansion into wilder, less developed countries on the continent.

“The drone-port project is about doing ‘more with less’, capitalising on the recent advancements in drone technology – something that is usually associated with war and hostilities – to make an immediate life-saving impact in Africa,” Foster said.

Those developing the project say that in many parts of Africa, too remote to establish telephone landlines, mobile technology leapfrogged that step, with mobiles now common across the continent even in remote places.

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Drones, it is argued, could do the same where a lack of roads has made access tough.

“Cargo drone routes have utility wherever there is a lack of roads,” the project proposal said.

“Just as mobile phones dispensed with landlines, cargo drones can transcend geographical barriers such as mountains, lakes and unnavigable rivers without the need for large-scale physical infrastructure.”

Jonathan Ledgard, from the Swiss-based Afrotech – an initiative aiming to “help pioneer advanced technologies in Africa at massive scale” – knows the challenges, having worked as a journalist in trouble spots across the continent for a decade.

Ledgard is convinced cargo drones will be the future, but is also determined the technology will benefit those who need it most.

“It is inevitable on a crowded planet, with limited resources, that we will make more intensive use of our sky using flying robots to move goods faster, cheaper and more accurately than ever before,” he said.

“But it is not inevitable that these craft or their landing sites will be engineered to be tough and cheap enough to serve poorer communities who can make most use of them.

“Drone-port is an attempt to make that happen, and to improve health and economic outcomes in Africa – and beyond.”

The Guardian

The European Union Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, Neven Mimica, will this afternoon meet President Kagame to discuss EU cooperation with Rwanda.

Mimica who is in the country for a 2-day visit is also scheduled to tour different projects supported by the European commission in Rwanda.

The European Union has for the past seven years spent over €290 million(Rwf240 billion) in supporting various projects in the country.

Under the country’s economic development agenda, EU’s areas of support include 60% of the funds worth €175 million that goes to the country’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy.

Other funds worth €40million from European commission support rural development, while the Union spends more €50 million to support infrastructure development in the country.

Before meeting president Kagame, the EU chief will hold a joint press conference with Finance Minister Clever Gatete.

European Union praises Rwanda for its stance on fighting poverty.

According to new 4th Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey released on Monday, extreme poverty in the country significantly dropped from 24.1% to 16.3% (7.8%) between 2011 and to 2014, while poverty level dropped by 5.8% from 44.9% to 39.1% in the same period.

While launching the survey at Serena Hotel, President Kagame said, “This 4th survey is proof that we have what it takes to transform Rwanda…now is the time to be even more determined to address remaining challenges.”

Rwanda will today join the rest of the world to celebrate the International Ozone Day.

This year’s theme is “30 Years of Healing the Ozone Together”.

In a statement, the Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA), in collaboration with Rwanda Medical Council, called upon local media to contribute to raising people’s awareness on the dangers of excessive exposure to ultra-violet (UV) radiations on health and how ozone protection activities can prevent diseases such as eye cataracts and skin cancers.

To mark the day, an interactive session with local journalists on the need to mobilise people’s participation in ozone protection activities is scheduled in Kigali.

“As the media has the power to reach many people, we need them to help us raise awareness on the importance of the ozone layer in protecting our lives from the harmful effects of the ultra-violet radiations and the need to protect it, as per this year’s theme,” noted Dr. Rose Mukankomeje, the director general of REMA said.

Celebrated every year on September 16 since 1985, the Day is set out to reflect on the progress made in ensuring that the ozone layer is not destroyed and that more efforts and resources are directed towards responsible communities that strive for a cleaner atmosphere.

Rwanda is a party to the Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer since 2003, and has been celebrating the Ozone Day since 2005.

Since 2003, Rwanda has been implementing activities which lead to gradual phase out of ozone depleting substances (ODSs), according to officials.

These include working sessions with ODSs importers with the aim of promoting possible alternatives, prohibiting illegal importation of ODSs with the help of the Rwanda Standards Board, Rwanda Revenue Authority and the Police, and training the key ODSs users such as refrigeration technicians on safe handling of the chemicals, among others.

The country’s outstanding contribution to the preservation of the Ozone Layer earned the country the 2012 Ozone Protection Award from the Ozone Secretariat of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Rwanda was selected to host the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Montreal Protocol come November 2016 by the Conference of the Parties to the Vienna Convention held in Paris, in 2014.

The ozone layer prevents excessive exposure of the earth to Ultra-Violet rays.

When the ozone layer gets depleted, the ultra-violet rays from the sun reach the earth directly without any shielding, hence posing a threat to human beings, animals and plants.

Among the consequences of ultra-violet include diseases such as skin cancer, eye cataracts and reduced immunity.

The NewTimes

{On August 19, World Photography Day is observed across the world while the National Camera Day is observed each year on June 29th. This day celebrates photographs, the camera and its invention.}

Returning to World Photography Day is all about celebrating photography, whether you are an amateur, hobbyist or a professional.

It originated after the invention of the Daguerreotype photographic processes, developed by Joseph NicephoreNiepce and Louis Daguerre in 1837. But on August 19, 1839, the French government announced the invention as the first practical gift to the world. In a way this was the true beginning of the World Photography Day.

{{Photography and camera}}

The History tells us that photography has roots in remote antiquity with the discovery of the principle of the camera obscura and the observation that some substances are visibly altered by exposure to light.

However the history of the camera can be traced much further back than the introduction of photography. Cameras evolved from the camera obscura, and continued to change through many generations of photographic technology, including daguerreotypes, calotypes, dry plates, film, and digital cameras.

Today we are as thankful for the development of photography as an affordable medium for capturing memories.

As the World celebrates Photography day, just for fun, we put together this gallery with some of the milestones in camera development since the early 1900s.

{It’s quite true without camera one can’t have a photo!!! Do you remember your first camera? What kind of camera do you use today?}

{{{New data further confirms that our 13.8 billion-year-old universe is well past its prime, and is slowly fading out.}}}

The Australian-led project known as Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) has been measuring the energy output of stars for the last few years, and the team of 100 scientists discovered that the output is only half what it was 2 billion years ago.

“The universe has basically sat down on the sofa, pulled up a blanket and is about to nod off for an eternal doze,” said Simon Driver, a leader of the GAMA project and a professor at the University of Western Australia, in a press release. “The universe is fated to decline from here on in, like an old age that lasts forever.”

Astronomers have known since the early 1990s that the universe was fading, and the GAMA team used seven of the world’s most powerful telescopes to study over 200,000 galaxies across 21 energy wavelengths to figure out how this was happening. The study was presented Monday at the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Hawaii.

Joe Liske, one of the researchers and a professor at the University of Hamburg, compared the process to a dying fire. “The stars die, like a fire dies, and then you have embers left over that then glow but eventually cool down,” Liske told NPR. “And the fire just goes out.”

Luckily, the fire won’t go out for at least a few more billion years.

{{Source: New York Post}}

{The Eastern Africa Grain Council (EAGC) has launched the G-Soko Platform which is an online trading platform that links smallholder farmers to grain buyers through a networked and structured market mechanism.

The platform was launched at a ceremony held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Nairobi and was officiated by the East African Community’s Secretary General, Richard Sezibera.

Notable regional and international stakeholders graced the occasion key among them being, The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Department for International Development (DFID) FoodTrade ESA and The British High Commission.}

The G-Soko platform is developed by the Eastern Africa Grain Council (EAGC) in partnership with FoodTrade Eastern and Southern Africa, and Virtual City, a leading mobile software solutions firm supporting the supply chain and agribusiness industry in Africa. This is through a 5-year trade enhancement and promotion programme that aims to encourage trading in regional staple food markets. The UK through DFID Africa Regional Department has invested £35 million( Kes 6 billion) in the Food Trade Eastern and Southern Africa programme to stimulate the regional grains market through partnerships with private companies and policy influencing.

During the unveiling ceremony, Mr. Gerald Masila, Executive Director of EAGC said, “Right now there is urgency to expand regional food trade due to the exponential growth of staple food imports. Linking rural food surplus production zones in Eastern Africa to major deficit urban consumption centres requires a well-functioning regional market. We wanted to address this deficiency but also do it in a way that is inclusive and effective. This is why we developed G-Soko; a market transaction platform that will enhance food trade across borders, and contribute towards making trading more transparent.”

The platform performs a structured trade function that integrates the entire grain trade from farm to market. Through G-Soko, farmers are able to aggregate their produce through a certified warehouse and also access financial services using their grains as collateral. For the first time, grain farmers in the region including Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania will now be able to trade their grain free, competitively and transparently across the region, through the G-Soko Platform.

Reiterating the technical capabilities of the platform and its role as a solution-provider, Virtual City Managing Director, John Waibochi noted that, “The model addresses the challenge of funds inadequacy by devising affordable export/import financing modalities. It creates synergies from the small scale farmers to the bulk buyers based on tested market structures. This system also enhances traceability of grains. Its Grain Bulking feature allows farmers to consolidate and sell their grains at aggregation centers linked with certified warehouses. More importantly, G-Soko will Increase the utilization of East African standards for grain commodities and products because quality assurance is key.”

Speaking at the event Marc Van Uytvanck, Team Leader of FoodTrade ESA said that, ”FoodTrade is proud to be associated with the East Africa Grain Council and its G-Soko Project that unlocks trade for smallholder farmers through a private sector-driven market platform that will link buyers and sellers in staple foods in Eastern Africa against spot market condition. The platform will provide farmers utilizing the certified warehouses to access local financing from participating banks for inputs; will increase production and create surpluses; and accelerate the utilization of grades and standards for grains and beans.”

The East Africa Community (EAC) also put its weight behind the G-Soko platform reinstating its commitment to develop sustainable structures in Grain Trade.

Mr. Jean Baptiste Havugimana, Director Productive Sectors, speaking on behalf of the Secretary General, Amb. Dr. Richard Sezibera, noted that the G-Soko Platform, was instrumental in driving regional integration and Trade, while assuring quality grades and standards for economic growth. “The EAC is committed to working with the Eastern Africa Grain Council and its regional partners in regional economic growth and support to regional trade within the EAC member states. As a private sector partner, we believe G-SOKO, will provide a wider grain market for all the countries in the region. Farmers from the member states can now trade freely as part of the common market protocol, through this partnership.”

A pilot project in Kenya that ran prior to the official launch attracted 10 warehouses and 5 banks, setting the pace for an optimistic gradual scaling throughout the Eastern Africa region. The event culminated into an exhibition where participants logged onto various workstations and were able to test out G-Soko’s features.

{Young people with the right digital skills are the future of the Rwanda economy. ICT is a fundamental aspect of every transaction and interaction in Rwanda today. However, young people can’t build their digital skills without support through training and education. There exists the theory of the ‘digital native’, someone who can intuitively learn computer skills simply by picking up a tablet or laptop, however this is proved untrue. }

Damien O’Sullivan, CEO of ICDL Foundation, has said, “the new digital divide is a divide between those who have skills for their lifestyle, and those who have skills for the workplace.’ Just because a young person can use a smartphone or tablet, doesn’t mean they can write a report, complete a spreadsheet or use ICT securely.

Even though digital skills are essential to almost every job these days, the actual abilities of employees and young people are, in many cases, shockingly low. For example, a recent study in Germany revealed that only 20% of respondents could successfully apply a paragraph style in a word document. A study in Italy found that 42% of young people were not aware of the security risks that can be involved in wireless internet access, while research in Australia revealed that 45% of young respondents were only ‘rudimentary’ users of digital technologies.

Students at Nu-Vision High School are setting the standard for the future of digital skills in Rwanda by becoming the first and youngest students in the country to be ICDL certified. In July students were presented certificates for having successfully completed examinations in 3 modules, by ICDL Africa General Manager Mr. Séamus McGinley. Boys and girls aged between 12-16 years old received certificates for Computer Essentials, Word Processing and Spreadsheets. “This was an exciting achievement for both staff and students at Nu-Vision High School.” said the Principal, Mr Dube Ndumiso.

Mr. Séamus McGinley commended the school, its staff and students for being the pioneers of ICDL in Rwandan schools and recognising the need for international computer qualifications in the curriculum, complementing the existing range of courses available at Nu-Vision. Futhermore, the Principal added that ‘There is an increase in demand from our students for ICDL courses, and in response, the school is now offering additional modules like Online Essentials and IT Security. During the course of third term, more students will sit for ICDL modules.”

Rwanda continues to be a shining light for digital literacy in Africa and ICDL Africa looks forward to more students bridging the digital divide like those at Nu-Vision.

{Airtel Rwanda in partnership with Olleh Rwanda Networks has participated in the opening of the first ever 4G Square in Rwanda}.

Presided over by Hon. Jean Philbert Nsengimana, the Minister for Youth and ICT, the 4G Square was launched in Kigali at the Grand Pension Plaza.

Being the first of its kind in the country, the 4G Square will be a one-stop hub for all the 4G LTE technology devices that include; smart phones, touch pads, smart watches and a conference room, a refreshment area and advanced on technology options (Play interactive system) for customers to experiment with.

Speaking at the launch of the 4G Square, Chrysanthe Turatiman, the Airtel Value Added Services, Devices and Data Manager said; “The 4G Square is the latest innovation that has come to Rwanda and this will go a long way in easing access to 4G services for the people of Rwanda. We shall ensure that consumers enjoy consistent, uninterrupted and high quality super-fast internet speeds.”

The 4G Square will also have free super-fast internet that can be accessed at inside the square by all customers. The Airtel booth will provide 3G and 4G internet solutions for all customers and it will be open every day.

The Guest of Honor, Hon. Jean Philbert Nsengimana Minister of Youth and ICT Rwanda said; “4G LTE technology is a win for the ICT and the business community in Rwanda. This is what the economy of technology is all about and we hope that talented youths can be able to use this 4G Square to produce developmental applications that can help our nation.”

4G LTE is the fourth generation of mobile telecommunications technology, succeeding 3G. 4G LTE technology provides mobile ultra-broadband Internet access to internet enabled devices like smartphones, tablets and laptops. It is considered the fastest internet in Africa.

{{Agencies}},{{ PC Tech Mag}}