Humanitarian Engineering & Social Entrepreneurship (HESE) Program

Kijenzi Team Makes Friends with Local Artisan 

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Kijenzi Team Makes Friends with Local Artisan 

 — May 22nd, 2018 – Kisumu, Kenya
— Author: Noah Kozminski

 

On recreational trip, some members of the Kijenzi team pay a visit to a local Maasai market. The Maasai, a local ethnic group, have maintained much of their traditional lifestyle this past century, with the notable addition of selling art to tourists. In the market, at the last stall on the left, the team meets Kennedy Nyakawa, a local artisan specializing in hand-carved soapstone sculptures. The students and artisan hit it off, and after speaking at length, they are invited for tea at his home.

HESE students pose with their new friend.

A local artisan carves a heart.

The residence is a rural farmstead, a traditional mud-brick house surrounded by crops and livestock; Kennedy and his family grow maze, plantains and avocadoes, as well raising chickens and a cow. The group is treated to exceptional hospitality — including tea made with fresh milk, chapati, and chicken — a meal Kennedy says his family eats only rarely. With the abundance of their farm, the family has a wealth of material resources, which they have been transmuting into economic wealth to support Kennedy’s son Simon’s education. After graduating, Simon spent a year helping his father run the art stall in the Maasai market.

Along with tea, the visiting students get to see soapstone collection and carving first-hand. “It was incredible to see the process from start to finish,” says Dan Kats. Getting to visit a mud brick house and eat food prepared in an enclosed, smoke-filled kitchen is also eye-opening. “It shines a whole new light on the problems we’ve been talking about the whole semester.”

Why Kijenzi Connects with Local Businesses

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Why Kijenzi Connects with Local Businesses 

— May 22nd, 2018 – Kisumu, Kenya
— Author: Noah Kozminski

 

The Kijenzi team continues their endeavor of locating potential future clients and contacts across Kisumu. Through site visits and discussion, the team has created an interactive map detailing these locations, from tiny printing stalls to computer repair stores. Kijenzi is trying to connect hospitals’ supply needs to local businesses capable of housing 3-D printers. The goal, says team member Akhil Pothana, is to identify local entrepreneurs capable of using this technology to circumvent slow supply chains. These businesses, such as cyber cafés and printing stores, share technical proficiencies, making them candidates for owning and operating 3-D printers used to produce medical supplies.

HESE students working on interactive map.

Design Hub is a key organization Kijenzi hopes to partner with as the venture moves forward. The owner of the father-son business — a graphic designer by trade, though his failing vision poses new challenges — has plans to expand into multimedia and establish a technical school teaching graphic design and technology skills. Design Hub is familiar with the difficulties that traditional government-operated supply chains can pose in the region, a problem Kijenzi is aiming to alleviate.

The Kijenzi team has also become close with local business owner Cornell, who runs “Options, Price and Marketing,” which offers a variety of services from printing to rubber stamp making. Cornell’s undergraduate and graduate studies, along with his experience working in Pakistan, have helped him develop his business approach. The Kijenzi team recounts Cornell’s mantra: “A bus is coming your way, and you have to be ready to get on it. That’s how you stay in business.” With an approach focusing on innovation, Cornell trains his employees for success, and does not expect them to stay forever. Cornell is proud of his work, and is excited by the prospect of a potential collaboration with Kijenzi. While currently busy putting his children through school, Cornell plans to retire and pursue a PhD.

By working closely with local business owners, getting to know them and their stories, Kijenzi is making personal connections that form a strong foundation for the venture’s objectives. Along the way, the team is introducing the concept of 3-D printing to these new contacts, and will be soon be providing a demonstration of the technology to potential partners like Cornell and Design Hub.

Inakua Tests Hydroponics Towers in Kisumu 

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Inakua Tests Hydroponics Towers in Kisumu 

— May 19th, 2018 – Kisumu, Kenya
— Author: Noah Kozminski

 

The Inakua team heads out of town to check on their local hydroponics tower installation at a friend’s home. “Inakua is working to use low-cost hydroponics to reduce food insecurities in East Africa. The system allows farmers to grow food, no matter how erratic the rainy season,” explains team member Jessica Novis. The team stops along the way, picking up a few seedlings for planting. Nestled in a corner of a gated housing complex, Inakua’s hydroponics tower system stands some eight feet tall, made up of a vertical pipe holding a variety of vegetables, seated in a large drum of water, a few wires linking it to a nearby solar panel. The team reacts with excitement — their vegetables have grown significantly since the day before.

Getting to work, the team insert seedlings into planting cups and repair some leaks. While hydroponics towers are generally used in greenhouses, the team is testing the system’s performance in Kisumu’s equatorial environment. Nutrient-rich water pumped through the hydroponics system can speed up the natural growth cycle, says Jessica. “The plants actually grow much larger because they don’t have to dig through the soil to find nutrition — it’s given right to them.”

Students meet with seedling distributors to use in the hydroponic system.

Jessica examines the system for leaks and checks on the seedlings.

The hydroponics tower is made primarily of locally sourced parts, and while some components (circuit breakers, solar panel, etc.) were brought from the US, the team says that equivalent, low-cost parts can be found in the Kisumu area. Having these parts locally available is an instrumental part of the venture.

“A big issue with past hydroponics ventures has been scalability,” says teammate Ellis Driscoll. Where earlier efforts have had high up-front costs and multi-week training periods, Inauka is taking a different approach. The instructions for the hydroponics tower have been reduced to only three pages — a change, Ellis says, that will greatly reduce barriers to entry for local farmers.

Inakua is planning on gauging the response of local farmers to the hydroponics tower, which, along with their other research into the tower’s environmental performance and a more streamlined instructional process, will guide their efforts going forward.

HESE Visits Ijzima University College

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HESE Visits Ijzima University College

— May 16th, 2018 – Kisumu, Kenya
— Author: Noah Kozminski

 

The entire HESE group pays a visit to Uzima University College to meet with fellow college students, better understand local culture, and compete in a casual game of football. Uzima is a medical college just outside of Kisumu, that has been in close collaboration with Kijenzi, which is leading a 3-D printing course at the college, as well as stocking an on-campus 3-D printing lab.

A bus from the university arrives at the Sooper Guest House, and with some effort, more than 40 HESE students and team leaders squeeze on board. A journey out of the city center, through construction sites, and down a flooded, potholed dirt road leads the group to Uzima’s campus. Inside the gate, a picturesque view awaits: Clean new buildings with red tile roofs stand on a verdant lawn, broad trees shade walkways, and a panoramic vista of downtown Kisumu across the bay serves as a backdrop for the afternoon’s activities.

Penn State and Uzima students socialize before the football match.

Penn State and Uzima students socialize before the football match.

Administrative, faculty, and student leaders warmly greet the group, escorting them into a spacious classroom. Uzima students follow, and a few welcoming speeches are given. One mentions the upcoming soccer match between the schools, teasingly hinting at Uzima’s inevitable win, and the HESE students burst into a good-natured indignant uproar. Students from both schools are then left to mingle, sharing experiences, stories, and laughter, before drifting outside to prepare for the game.

Cobbling together a rag-tag team from the mixed assortment of students, the HESE group gets ready for the match — facing off against Uzima’s football team. The game commences, and HESE puts up a good fight, scoring one goal, the second half of the match gets away from the team, and the game ends with a 6-1 victory for Uzima. Sweaty, exhausted, members of both teams gather for a photo, and as groups of students engage in some post-game banter, the evening draws to a close.

Both teams pose for a photo after the game.

One of many tumbles during the match!

Everyone circles up to say farewell, and say thanks for the night. “We had a great time playing,” says HESE’s Ellis Driscoll, speaking to the entire group. “I know it’s cliché, but I’m going to say it anyway — it’s really cool to see that across cultures, people can come together and have a good time.”

Produce Solutions’ First Day in Kenya

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Produce Solutions’ First Day in Kenya

— May 11th, 2018 – Kisumu, Kenya
— Author: Noah Kozminski

 

Beginning their first day of on-site research, the Produce Solutions team meets with a local farmer to learn how supply chains in Kisumu bring fresh food from the farm to the table. By implementing modern technology, the team looks to reduce waste of critical food supplies by improving connections between rural farmers and transporters.

The team goes to talk with a nearby farmer, whose knowledge is critical to understanding the network of supply and demand of food in the Kisumu area. After a dust-filled, bumpy van ride (a Kisumu staple) to the farm’s location some 10 kilometers from town, the team makes their way down winding, overgrown backroads before finally meeting with local farmer Sande.

A guided tour of the acre-and-a-half farm shows off a considerable array of produce and livestock — goats, cows, and chickens accompany plots of kale, maize, and spinach. The crowning jewel, however, is the fruit. Sande proudly displays his variety of citrus trees bearing oranges, lemons and tangerines. A closer look reveals that one tree bears four types of fruit — Sande has mastered the art of grafting, allowing a single plant to provide a variety of related fruits in an impressive feat of ingenuity. His farm, Sande says, offers varieties of oranges and tangerines unavailable anywhere else in the area.

Sande shows the team specific agriculture techniques he uses to maximize his yield.

HESE Students are shown around a smallholder farm.

Continuing with the tour, the team visits a mango grove, a crop which is particularly difficult to store and transport due to synchronized ripening and a short marketable lifespan. At the far end of the farm, a USAID-provided irrigation system drip feeds a plot of maize and several banana trees. Sande explains drastic seasonal changes in water supply cause many losses and challenges — flooding in the current rainy season causes soggy soil, visible to the team in a wilted field of spinach, and droughts cause soil to dry and crack.

A final round of questioning from the Produce Solutions team reveals several of the issues local farmers face with pre- and post-harvest losses. Rotting, expensive pest management tools, and seasonal challenges are constantly problematic, and supply and demand can fluctuate dramatically. Sande explains that he prefers to do business with local women, who carry produce to market by hand, rather than deal with supermarkets, who sometimes take advantage of local farmers by charging them for goods that spoil at the store.

The team, having gained valuable information from this venture, now looks farther from Kisumu, where they feel the insights from more rural farmers may further illuminate issues in transporting perishable goods into the city center.

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