Maker Faire Kumasi!
It’s hard to believe that I’ve been in Ghana for an entire month now! The time has passed far too quickly but I’m proud to say I’ve learned a ton and had some incredible experiences throughout my trip. In the last four weeks I’ve gotten to work on trying to create a product that could reduce the number of Malaria cases in New Longoro, Ghana as well as spending some of my free time prototyping a cassava grater for a trial testing in a small village outside of Kumasi. It’s been a ton of work but it seems like we’ve developed a product (a lantern which vaporizes a locally available oil in order to repel mosquitoes) that could really make a difference for a number of people. That being said we’ve only been here for five weeks and that’s nowhere near enough time to fully develop a product. But going through the design process in such a short time has allowed me to learn a ton in just a few short weeks. I’m excited to take back what I’ve learned and use it on Babson’s campus.
Before all of that happens I’ll be attending Maker Faire Africa-Kumasi (a design expo created to allow small-scale manufacturers to show off their wares http://makerfaireafrica.com) and presenting a prototype for the lantern we’ve been working on as well as a prototype for the cassava grater. It will be a great opportunity for us to see what people think of our ideas and how we can improve them. It should be a long and busy day but hopefully I’ll have a ton of photos and even more information to share with you afterwords!