Sivuziwe Mzamo is a grade 11 student at a former Model C school in Grahamstown, and the modest inventor of a bicycle-powered cellphone charger.
This week he won the hearts of 20 journalists attending a course on Reporting Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) at the Highway Africa annual conference held at Rhodes University .
Mzamo upturned his bike on a table, spun the wheels, and presto — his plugged-in Nokia was charging. He spent R10 on parts for his device, which links to a R60 dynamo like those that power a bicycle light.
|
| Boy genius Sivuziwe Mzamo |
The teenager thinks his invention could benefit cellphone users in electricity-poor rural Africa as well as cycle-crazy Europe.
Earlier, the course participants had heard about different emphases for ICT stories and they were briefed to question Mzamo according to themes:
Technology: Some journalists asked about the science involved — probing the device’s safety and reliability. He responded with an elementary lesson in physics, and the journalists in turn were able to draft stories explaining how the device actually works. (The bike wheel rotates a copper coil around a magnet, generating a current that is converted into a constant flow with a maximum power level that will not blow the circuit.)
Business: A second set of questions dealt with economics, eliciting from the young man his views on marketing prospects and pricing, as well as bundling the device in package deals offered by cellphone service providers. Patents and intellectual property rights also came up. The participants heard that Mzamo hopes to earn some money, but he first needs to confirm his patent and then find a company to manufacture the device.
Capacity: A third group of questions had Mzamo talking about his science skills, and he generously credited a teacher and a Rhodes physics lecturer for giving him advice. The idea was raised of schools using his experience to inspire and challenge other students to replicate the gadget.
Global: A fourth angle interrogated the location of production bases, whence investment might come and what the export potential might be. Mzamo said that although he won applause at a science expo in Germany, he is still looking for a backer, from anywhere, to commercialise the charger.
Culture: Fifth in the question focus was the lifestyle significance of the invention. Would it stimulate cellphone uptake in rural areas? Could it find a trendy home on exercise bikes in gyms? (As one journalist participant later wrote: ”By cycling off the cellulite, one can have instant cellular charge on [one’s] cellphone.”)
Mzamo’s story can be told through any, all or some of these lenses. It encompasses, in a nutshell, the general issues with which the course participants are wrestling — alongside 280 other journalists — during the actual Highway Africa conference, which kicked off Wednesday evening.
On the conference agenda, available on its website, are the journalistic challenges of:
Technology: Reporters learn about ICT’s complexities — such as the meanings of broadband, voice-over-internet protocol, Wifi, 3G, blogging and open-source software.
Economics: A hot topic is a digital solidarity fund to promote connectivity in Africa. This issue is part of the United Nations’s rolling World Summit on the Information Society, which began last December and culminates in Tunisia in December 2005. Understanding intellectual property and patents are also important subjects at Highway Africa.
Skills: Capacity-building permeates the conference. Afternoon sessions of the three-day event are dedicated to workshops that build ability to tell the ICT story effectively.
International: Conference delegates will thrash out a common African journalistic position on information-society issues, including media freedom across the continent. Internet governance, the growth of pan-African media industries and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development-ICT interface are related topics under the spotlight.
Culture: How to get more African content and languages into cyberspace is a central concern of the programme.
The group of journalists who interviewed Mzamo is also reporting on the conference through the novel platform of the Highway Africa News Agency (Hana). Hana’s mission is to ”mainstream” information-society stories by taking them out of the margins of elite-limited magazines or other outlets and into general-interest media.
The point is to spread stories like that of Mzamo — and all their wider ramifications. The agency hopes to bring home to audiences the epochal importance of Africa’s tentative steps into the information society.
And the cellphone-charger inventor himself?
While he wants to see his charger being manufactured, he’s not planning to go into business. He has another year of school, then he intends to study medicine.
Meanwhile, his creative idea could bring telecoms into practical reach of many rural people who would otherwise lack the necessary electrical power.
And, at the very least, his achievement has helped 20 journalists get a grip on how to report on ICTs making a difference to Africa.
On the net:
Highway Africa
E-mail Guy Berger directly if you have a question about this article.
Guy Berger is head of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University and deputy chair of the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef). He was recently nominated for the World Technology Awards.