When you meet her, you are immediately struck by the assertive, determined woman she is. But beneath the tough exterior is a woman with a story, a story of adversity and abuse that has led to her becoming one of Uganda’s top travel and tour operators.
Jackie Kemirembe Rubuubi, the Founder and Managing Director of Platinum Safaris, started small. She began her career in the airline industry as a security officer with Sabena Airways, now known as Brussels Airlines. She worked there until the company, which she calls “a very professional workplace”, ran into operational troubles. It was forced to temporarily close down and change names. She had to make ends meet so she found a temporary job at the Kenya Airways office in Uganda’s capital Kampala.
Soon, a new airline, Africa One, made an entry in the Ugandan airspace. And Rubuubi was headhunted for a top managerial position. The offer came with many promises including tempting bonuses. This made her give it her best, but after some time on the job, Rubuubi started noticing the cracks.
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“Suddenly, I had multiple directors to report to instead of the one that was indicated in my appointment letter. I also never got the bonuses despite signing lucrative deals,” she says. One of the male directors particularly got meddlesome in her duties, unilaterally issuing holiday breaks to members of her team. This upset operations in the section that Rubuubi headed. Frustration set in.
“It was pure harassment and lack of professionalism,” she says.
At the height of it, she decided to have a one-on-one with the female director about the state of affairs. It was going to be a conversation she would never forget – for a long time.
“The director I sought to confide in and the one I was actually supposed to be reporting to told me that as long as I remained employed with them, it wouldn’t be strange if she asked me to go and make their beds! In her view, I was to do anything they wanted me to do despite being a manager. I immediately made up my mind to resign, bringing an end to two daunting years. It turned out to be the worst job I ever had.”
That conversation gave Rubuubi enough reason to leave – and consider starting something on her own. She retreated to London where she found a job as an accountant in a retail food chain.
Within a year, she returned to Uganda on maternity leave. She never returned to London though she kept being paid her salary. She used the money to open a garment shop. The new venture wasn’t doing well but she wanted to avoid being employed again.
It was not easy.
At one point, when she traveled to Dubai to source garments for her shop, she met a Turkish couple who convinced her to open an employment agency to recruit people in Kampala and connect them to odd jobs in Dubai.
The couple turned out to be imposters when they vanished with the $27,000 Rubuubi had given them to process visas for the 230 recruits that had registered.
Her attempts to involve Interpol in tracing them were met with numerous death threats from the couple. She finally gave up and devised a new plan.
With an International Air Transport Association (IATA) qualification under her belt, Rubuubi decided to open a travel and tour company. She registered Platinum Safaris in 2002, starting operations in a small room.
Her first client was an official from the International Criminal Court who not only became a regular but also brought in other customers. The business prospered and she registered it with professional bodies. This brought more opportunities until she shifted office to a new location.
Today, Platinum Safaris is a leading tour and travel service provider in the East African region known for services such as air-ticketing, safaris across the Great Lakes region, honeymoon packages, visa advisory, conference planning and bookings for white-water rafting and gorilla-tracking.
Last year, Platinum received an accolade from Amadeus, a firm that provides travel software and technology solutions for the global travel industry, for its high adoption of solutions. The company also has a raft of honors from other industry players including airlines.
Rubuubi’s vision is to venture into luxury tourism similar to what is offered in Morocco. She is in the final stages of acquiring speedboats that will introduce a new tourism circuit connecting major islands on Lake Victoria, Africa’s greatest lake and source of the Nile.
She says that what she went through made her realize women surely deserve better at the workplace.
“No one expects women to perform better than men. But the fact is many women are stronger than men,” she says.

No More Suffering The Boss

A deep horn blast was used in a slice of history at Africa’s biggest stock exchange. It was from the lungs of Rakesh Wahi, Founder and Vice Chairman of Africa Business News (ABN), signaling the opening of the bourse, as CNBC Africa crossed a new frontier in business broadcasting on the continent.
CNBC Africa – the sister of FORBES AFRICA in the ABN stable – became the first African broadcaster to beam shows from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). It came on the eve of the company’s seventh anniversary.
“It’s an exciting time; I haven’t stopped smiling since yesterday. It is to the credit of the people around you who have all done a fantastic job,” says Wahi.
CNBC Africa is emulating the example of CNBC in the United States (US), which has broadcast from the New York Stock Exchange since 1995. This move is all part of a bigger plan.
“Our vision is to be in all 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. We have to be in all the major exchanges and report from the smaller ones. We need to be able to integrate all these exchanges through information flows. We need to be able to go out and educate people about what markets are,” says Wahi.
The new studio is state of the art. It includes an eight cube video wall, six interview positions and robotic cameras – which will be fully controlled out of the gallery and will minimize additional camera crew. The main anchor desk, resembling a star, is a copy of the one used both in Europe and the US.
It will host Open Exchange, Power Lunch and Closing Bell, with regular crossings to Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Mauritius, Uganda, Zambia, Namibia, Rwanda, Mozambique, Botswana, Gabon and Ghana.
Jean Landsberg, the head of technical and operations for the ABN Group, traveled to New York and Singapore to check out the latest technology.
“When I traveled to the SGX in Singapore and New York, I got an idea how they put their infrastructure in place… whereas Singapore still link in to their [stock exchange], from the main studio, we will be actually running everything and all the operations from the JSE studios. So it’s a little more advanced than what Singapore is doing,” says Landsberg.
LED technology will be used to reduce the power consumption by the studio lights and the video wall. Landsberg says, as time goes by, small technological frills will be added.
The new technology is in the interest of keeping business people better informed about what’s happening inside Africa’s biggest bourse.

The First Lady of the road

On The Pulse Of The Markets

A blank projector screen hangs in the middle of a room in William V.S. Tubman High School. A handful of expatriates and Liberians mill around, waiting for the film that was scheduled to start rolling over an hour ago. Young women wait expectantly behind a table filled with snacks and baked goods. But most of the yellow plastic chairs are empty.
After plugging and unplugging a jumble of chords and tapping a few computer keys the film begins to play. Restless children and 20 or so adult members of the audience sit as a film titled No More Selections We Want Elections screens. It traces the 2005 elections that saw President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf come to power. The sound is gritty, light streaming through the sheer curtains washes out the image on the screen and the audience is small.
This is the first time Liberia has held a film festival. The brainchild of Pandora Hodge, a young Liberian student, and a collection of her colleagues from the University of Liberia and SPARK, a Dutch NGO that fosters entrepreneurship in post-conflict countries. The Image of Liberia film festival was held over three days in Monrovia in February and aired Liberian and African films in classrooms and communities throughout the city. Some screenings were packed and went off without a hitch; others ran late and attracted a sparse audience.
Through the festival, Hodge and her team hope to challenge the war-torn image of Liberia and build up interest in the art house cinema called Kriterion that she and her colleagues are trying to establish. Films about Liberia’s brutal recent history – it’s civil unrest that spanned three decades, killed 250,000 people and destroyed the nation’s infrastructure – are notably absent from the program that is filled with a small selection of Liberian and African films.
“We are creating a platform where young people can go to express themselves. A cinema is a really good way to get people involved and get people aware of what is happening in the country and abroad,” says Hodge.
Inspired by the model of a cinema that was created in Amsterdam by university students involved in the anti-Nazi resistance movement in the aftermath of World War II, Hodge hopes that Monrovia’s own Kriterion can provide part-time employment to students and also become a hub for Liberian cinema and intellectual debate. The Kriterion model has also been adopted by students in post-conflict cities like Sarajevo.
But, establishing an art house cinema will be a challenge in a country where most people get their slice of cinema in ramshackle video clubs, sitting on wooden benches watching Nigerian, American and Indian films off eerie television screens that sit small in the darkness. In Monrovia, cinemas are virtually non-existent – two of the three cinemas, remembered fondly by Liberia’s pre-war generation, have been demolished. Only Rivoli, a cinema in downtown Monrovia, is still standing and seems to screen Bollywood movies exclusively. These cinemas aired mainly American movies as films were largely limited to government public relations and propaganda. But Hodge and her team, through surveying and research, found Liberian audiences want to see more locally produced films.
Unlike some of its neighbors in the region, like Nigeria and Ghana, Liberia has never had a vibrant film culture. Liberia’s cinema scene is small and amateurish with only a handful of directors producing quality films.
Derick Snyder, a filmmaker and producer, describes most Liberian films as birthday party quality.
“You got a little camera for your daughter’s birthday and you just film the yard. We’ve still got a lot to learn,” he says.
Snyder is one of a handful of Liberian producers who are able to shoot and edit quality films. Most actors are untrained and perform for free; those with talent and ambition head to Nigeria, Ghana or Gambia. Lack of access to equipment, technical know-how and stale plotlines, have hindered the growth of Liberia’s small film industry, says Snyder.
“Everyone is doing ma, pa, daughter crying in the living room love stories,” he says, adding that Liberians prefer the drama and slick effects of many of the Nigerian films.
Snyder, like many producers, has a day job shooting events for the United Nations Mission in Liberia and produces films on the side. He says most filmmakers struggle to earn a living.
Unlike other African countries, the Liberian government provides limited funding for the arts.
But, over the past year, there have been efforts to develop filmmaking by organizations such as Accountability Lab, an NGO focused on funding small projects that encourage accountability. Nigerian-Liberian director Divine Key Anderson heads a part-time film school that helps train students to make short films focused on accountability issues.
“Since 1847, we have been writing papers and not much has changed in this country and that is because 70 percent of our population are illiterate… but with film even a blind man can see,” says Anderson, who, like Hodge, agrees that film can be instrumental in creating political debate and change.
For James Emmanuel Roberts, who made No More Selections We Want Elections, the arts play a vital role in creating national identity and broader political and social debate. Roberts, 70, headed the national cultural troupe in the 1970s and helped create a satire television series called Kotati, meaning ‘sit down there’ in the Kru language, that aired on Liberian state-run television.
Roberts argues the development of a film scene in Liberia will play an important role in creating a collective historical memory that was largely erased by the 1980 coup and civil war, during which many records and archives were destroyed.  He says that cinema could help Liberians shape the story of their nation, whose recent history has been narrated by outsiders, namely Western journalists. Roberts and his son are currently working on a film on the 2011 elections.
After I finish interviewing Roberts, the public electricity cuts out and Hodge and her team rush to fuel up a generator for the next screening.
Creating an art house cinema, in a country whose cultural scene is only just beginning to re-emerge a decade after the civil war, will be a challenge. Hodge is confident she and her Kriterions are up to the task and that the film festival will continue to attract a culture-hungry audience.

Us On Film

Set in Kenya’s Hell’s Gate National Park, Disney’s animated film, The Lion King celebrates 20 years on June 15. The Lion King’s stage adaptation of the original 1994 film has grossed more than $5 billion across the globe. The original film is the highest grossing hand-drawn film in history.
It tells the story of Simba, a young lion who is to succeed his father, Mufasa, as king. But after Simba’s uncle Scar murders Mufasa, Simba is fooled into thinking he was responsible and flees into exile in shame and despair.
While growing up with two wastrels, Simba is given some valuable perspective from his friend Nala and his shaman, Rafiki, before returning to challenge Scar to end his tyranny.
The story is set in the kingdom of lions in east Africa, with influences from biblical stories of Joseph and Moses, as well as William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Though it has had great success, the production of The Lion King has also had its problems. A dispute arose between Disney and the family of South African Solomon Linda, who composed the song, ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’, originally titled ‘Mbube’ in 1939. In July 2004, the family filed a lawsuit for $1.6 million in royalties from Disney. Two years later, Linda’s heirs reached a legal settlement with Abilene Music who held the worldwide rights and licensed the song to Disney.
In 1997, three years after the release of The Lion King, Walt Disney produced the musical stage adaptation of the same name, with the first show in Minneapolis in the United States. The musical went on to become one of the most successful in Broadway history and is still running across the globe to this day.
Britain’s stage production of The Lion King casts a huge number of South Africans. In the current run, 25-year-old Nicholas Nkuna is wowing audiences as the third South African to be cast as Simba, following Brian Temba and Andile Gumbi. Before heading to Britain to play Simba, Nkuna was the second youngest black Phantom in the musical The Phantom of the Opera.
“I auditioned for the show for two years and got a call back for the final in the third year. I went to Florida in America to do my final call back. Towards the end of Phantom, they rang me to let me know I got the job,” says Nkuna.
In July 2012, Nkuna moved to Bristol to start rehearsals for the spectacle.
Playing the lead is a huge responsibility and expectations are high. But as time went on, Nkuna says he eased into the role.
“It was incredible; it was eye-opening. The standard of performance is different, the preparation is different. With The Lion King, there’s acting, there’s singing and dancing and you also have the animal elements to it. So you’re half a lion, half a human,” he says.
“You need to learn how to move like a lion. It was interesting to do those workshops. We did Javanese movements. There’s certain cultural depth that they do that’s sort of similar to how humans would move animal-like.”
After two years of traveling with The Lion King, Nkuna has decided to end his journey as Simba to focus on his music and other business adventures.
But the show must go on. In March 2013, The Lion King was launched in Brazil and for the first time in Portuguese. It has been performed in six other languages. It has also been seen on every continent besides Antarctica.
The creators of The Lion King are probably sitting somewhere saying to themselves, ‘Hakuna Matata’, as the Lion King could enthral audiences for decades to come.
<h4>The Soul Of Simba</h4>
The opening scene of The Lion King is unforgettable. As the yellow African sun rises over the horizon, a Zulu voice cries ‘Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba’. It means ‘Here comes a lion, Father’.
That voice belongs to South African award winning musician Lebohang Morake, but to the world of arts and entertainment he’s known as Lebo M.
Morake grew up in Soweto, Johannesburg. From a young age, he started singing in a local pop band. In his first interaction with the music business he saw corruption. At the age of 12, he released his first single Celebration which received a lot of local success. However, Morake only received $20.
After finding success in Lesotho, Morake received a scholarship to study music in the United States (US). It was there that he met world-renowned composer Hans Zimmer. The two worked together on the score for the film The Power of One.
Years later, Hans Zimmer was hired to score the most successful animated movie in history, The Lion King. Zimmer wanted to make the music authentically African and there was only one person he had in mind for the job.
Zimmer traveled to South Africa to find Morake. The two returned to the US where they created a soundtrack to the film that won them numerous awards as well as a Grammy for best instrumental arrangement with accompanying vocal for The Circle Of Life.
Riding on the success of the film, Morake was then commissioned to write the music for The Lion King musical which instantly became a Broadway hit. Morake composed new songs for the production which went well with the music from the original movie.
It has become one of Broadway’s longest-running shows with productions in several countries around the world.
Morake’s original compositions and voice can be heard in a number of films including Chicken Little, Mighty Joe Young, Congo and Tears of the Sun. When you listen to Morake sing, you may not understand the lyrics but you will understand why everyone calls him the voice of The Lion King.

A Roaring Success

A deep horn blast was used in a slice of history at Africa’s biggest stock exchange. It was from the lungs of Rakesh Wahi, founder and vice chairman of Africa Business News (ABN), signaling the opening of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), as CNBC Africa crossed a new frontier in business broadcasting on the continent.
CNBC Africa – the sister of FORBES AFRICA in the ABN stable – became the first African broadcaster to beam shows from the JSE. It came on the eve of the company’s seventh anniversary.
“It’s an exciting time; I haven’t stopped smiling since yesterday. It is to the credit of the people around you who have all done a fantastic job,” says Wahi.
CNBC Africa is emulating the example of CNBC in the United States (US), which has broadcast from the New York Stock Exchange since 1995. This move is all part of a bigger plan.
“Our vision is to be in all 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. We have to be in all the major exchanges and report from the smaller ones. We need to be able to integrate all these exchanges through information flows. We need to be able to go out and educate people about what markets are,” says Wahi.
The new studio is state of the art. It includes an eight cube video wall, six interview positions and robotic cameras &#8211; which will be fully controlled out of the gallery and will minimize additional camera crew. The main anchor desk, resembling a star, is a copy of the one used both in Europe and the US.
It will host Open Exchange, Power Lunch and Closing Bell, with regular crossings to Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Mauritius, Uganda, Zambia, Namibia, Rwanda, Mozambique, Botswana, Gabon and Ghana.
Jean Landsberg, the head of technical and operations for the ABN Group, traveled to New York and Singapore to check out the latest technology.
“When I traveled to the SGX in Singapore and New York, I got an idea how they put their infrastructure in place… whereas Singapore still link in to their [stock exchange], from the main studio, we will be actually running everything and all the operations from the JSE studios. So it’s a little more advanced than what Singapore is doing,” says Landsberg.
LED technology will be used to reduce the power consumption by the studio lights and the video wall. Landsberg says, as time goes by, small technological frills will be added.
The new technology is in the interest of keeping business people better informed about what’s happening inside Africa’s biggest bourse.

Entering the site of the 4,800MW coal-fired Kusile power station in the northeast South African province of Mpumalanga, one has to clear the security checkpoint and forget about taking any unauthorized pictures. The site is large, covering 1,355 hectares, and buzzing with activity.
Abram Masango, the general manager of Kusile with a mechanical engineering background, started out at steel company Columbus Stainless before moving to state-owned power utility Eskom, working on the company’s Hendrina power station, one of the country’s oldest and the only one with 10 units, to establish the $2.4 billion Mpumalanga project. This included refurbishing power stations and constructing the Majuba Rail – running between Ermelo and the Majuba power station.
In 2004, a five-year, $13.1-billion investment plan in the country’s electricity infrastructure was approved by cabinet. This was changed to $22.2 billion for the five years to 2011/2012. Generation projects absorbed around 70% of the funds.
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More recently, state-owned enterprises were allocated $39.1 billion of the public capital expenditure for the next three fiscal years. The public sector’s energy infrastructure will get $18.2 billion of this.
Eskom’s major energy source is coal, but it hopes to bring down its share in the primary energy mix to 70%, from its original 88%, while increasing its nuclear energy portion to between 17 and 25%, all by 2025.
Masango was brought in to run the Kusile project in late 2007. A decision was made to build it in eight years, instead of the standard 10. The team went with a multiple contract approach, divided into 62 packages.
Eskom didn’t feel it had a choice in the fast-tracking of Kusile because of the power shortage the country is experiencing. As for elements falling through the cracks, the team is adamant that managing the project as a world-class one, as well as placing the necessary skills in place, has prevented quality being compromised.
The Unit 2 TG block had to be destroyed and redone because of a quality problem.
“As much as we are fast-tracking, we are not taking a shortcut. We do sometimes have some quality challenges, and we pick them up and then solve them,” says Masango.
“If we compromise on quality, we will kill people.”
Another Eskom project currently underway is the 4,400MW, $10-billion Medupi power station. It is the fourth largest coal plant in the southern hemisphere and the biggest dry-cooled power plant in the world. It was originally slated to start generating electricity in 2011 but there have been numerous delays, ranging from faulty welding to strikes. French company Alstom was contracted to develop the Boiler Protection System (BPS) and Balance of Plant (BOP) control systems which repeatedly failed testing. Siemens was then brought in to work on the BPS for Unit 5 and 6 with Alstom. Alstom’s BOP has since passed the factory acceptance test.
Masango says that Kusile also experienced strikes but managed them better than Medupi.
Both Kusile and Medupi are important due to the power shortage problem in South Africa. It was in 2007 that the country first faced countrywide load shedding. More power emergencies came this year, with load shedding and blackouts.
In 2010, Eskom encountered a funding problem and Kusile could only continue on a skeleton base, while long term commitments continued. Funds were also redirected from Medupi, while Eskom tried to find a solution. In April 2010, the Development Bank of Southern Africa announced a $2 billion loan to Eskom. The World Bank approved another for $3.75 billion.
“The loan is provided to South Africa’s power utility, Eskom, and was brought about by unique circumstances including South Africa’s energy crisis of 2007 and early 2008, and the global financial crisis that exposed the country’s vulnerability to an energy shock and severe economic consequences,” the World Bank said in a statement.
Three billion dollars of the loan was earmarked for Medupi.
The funding plan took two years. It was in 2012 that construction on Kusile resumed at full steam, but not all the components were ready due to contracts having been put on hold. This came with some engineering integration challenges.
Eskom had to take on some of the design elements of the project, while waiting to give out contracts, in order to get part of the project &#8211; mainly the foundation &#8211; to continue. Some contractors had been given limited notice to proceed &#8211; for example placing a contract on the design of a component so that the specs could be given to another company that is responsible for that part of the project.
Kusile faced what Masango calls political, stability and unemployment challenges. It established a contractor academy providing eight months of intensive training for emerging companies in order to equip them with the skills needed to participate in the project.
Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) was a big component to consider. Kusile had an agreement with contractors to only bring their core people and then employ 60% from the surrounding communities. With time the team realized a new strategy with procurement conditions, forming joint ventures between large and emerging companies. To date, 409 companies have, in some way, participated in the project at a cost of close to $6.2 billion.
The two weeks of heavy rainfall during March set the project back a month. At the end of April it was almost 60% complete and the working goal is to get the entire plant operational by 2018. Unit 1 will be commissioned the second half of 2015. As of the end of March, construction on Medupi sat at 61%, with $7.4 million of the budget spent. Unit 6 is expected to be synchronized in the second half of 2014.
Due to growth, infrastructure is needed for capacity regardless of whether it’s coal, nuclear or otherwise. Last year a reported $130-million loan from France was granted to Eskom, to help finance its solar power projects. The trick, according to Masango, is trying to have a balanced mix – while bearing in mind that South Africa is still reliant on coal-fired plants.
According to Masango, Kusile has tried to ensure it is environmentally friendly &#8211; incorporating flue gas desulphurization, fabric filter plant, and supercritical design boilers which all decrease the air pollution that the plant emits. Medupi, and possibly some of the other plants, will in the future get these technologies as well.
A lot of the criticism of Eskom is about how the company has been managed.
“I think it’s also time that we [Eskom] go out and tell the public that they have to trust us because we’re doing our utmost best to deliver and make sure we keep the lights on,” says Masango.
Eskom has a lot to prove and only time will tell whether they can truly deliver this time.

The Long Crawl  To Electricity

Calling the american dream

It’s curious, and almost incongruous, to see Juste Chisenga, the Grade 1B teacher at the Kasisi Primary School, give a lesson in a neat black suit and checkered tie in the Zambian language of Bemba.
It’s hot and sweaty under a rusted tin ceiling that has been around since 1924. The classroom walls are full of cracks and its light blue paint is peeling. Dozens of curling educational posters hang, yellowed with age.
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The children look as worn out as the building they are in. Some have walked as far as 14 kilometers to get here. Their uniforms are mismatched and layered in red dust.
This is the last place you would expect to see a teacher wearing a suit. Chisenga looks like a man from another time.
It’s also the last place you would expect to see children staring at a slideshow on a solar powered projector instead of a blackboard.
It’s even more bizarre seeing the same seven-year-olds sitting on uneven wooden desks and pulling out several smart tablets from a cardboard box to continue their lesson.
This is the brainchild of entrepreneur Mark Bennett. His idea is to help educate young Zambians by making a tablet part of their school curriculum for their villages.
“We decided to do something about the way teaching is done in Zambia&#8230; These days everyone has access to a cell phone. What’s more, in the rural areas they know how to work it; without being able to read. So we designed something that could be translated into several different languages&#8230; We’ve spent around $6 million developing the software with the help of 250 designers from around the world animating it. So far, we have had 2.3 million words translated into local languages and a quarter of a million sounds,” he says.
Bennett first came to Zambia in 1985 on a two-year contract to work at a computer center at the University of Zambia. He left the job twelve years later after the university figured out he was still on its payroll, he jokes. From there, he spent years bringing the internet to Zambia. He became a household name when he sold his Zambian internet service provider, AfriConnect, to Vodacom in 2005.
Wondering what to do next, Bennett’s idea for iSchool came seven years ago while sitting next to Clare Stead on a plane.
“We started by asking what would we do in education differently in the bush. What would you do to teach better,” says Stead, who is now the E-Learning project director for iSchool.
“The internet is a great learning tool but not for Africa. It’s not contextual. We found that children in rural areas didn’t understand why Elmo from Sesame Street would need to hang washing up between two skyscrapers in Seattle. Our first step was designing an education program suited for the rural people of Africa,” she says.
With overwhelming class numbers of between 60 to 100 children at a time, teachers in Africa are overworked, underpaid and lack organization, says Stead.
“With the ZEduPad, children can engage with the tablet and find answers faster than a teacher asking the same question 60 times over. We were also able to devise a curriculum plan for teachers to help them set goals for the week, for the month and for the whole year.”
It’s not always been smooth sailing. The team has encountered a number of hurdles including the Zambian government that passed a law to allow children to be taught in their mother tongue. It meant Bennett’s team had to write out whole new languages, including the first dictionaries for a number of dialects.
Regardless of the difficulties, Bennett remains resolute. Now in its second year, the project has distributed 7,000 tablets across Zambia.
The tablets are solar charged meaning they can go pretty much anywhere in the county, says Bennett. The children find them fun to use and, thanks to the language changes, easily understood. It makes learning easier than staring at a blackboard and far more interactive, says Stead.
The results according to teacher Chisenga have been amazing. His grin is as wide as the tablet he helps his grade ones complete their basic maths with. A man in a suit that looks as out of place in the classroom as the tablets.

Tablets  that ease the learning headache

At last, Nigeria’s rough ride through the dark tunnel is coming to a slow but steady end. Slightly over 10 years since successfully privatizing its telecommunications sector, the country looks set to repeat the feat in its moribund power sector.
Ongoing power sector reforms have now given birth to lingering pains on the sector’s value chain, generating anxiety, high hopes and renewed expectations from a citizenry that has become accustomed to living in the dark ages.
A few years ago, Nigeria’s investment climate was considered not attractive enough for inclusion in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) group of nations. Fair enough. Today, the latest buzz word is MINT, for the grouping of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey. The target year for MINT is 2050. All of this is fancy talk for most people in Africa’s most populous nation. Why wait for 2050? What matters most to them is the short-term fix. They yearn for the simple bliss of a regular and affordable supply of electricity, as they continue to ask why a resource-rich country should continue to lack light. They reckon that regular power supply would unleash their enterprising spirits and catapult their nation’s fortunes well ahead of the BRIC or MINT states within a decade. And they could be right.
Jim O’Neill, the man who coined the BRIC acronym and the former chairman of the asset-management division of the Goldman Sachs Group, agrees. The size of the Nigerian economy would double in six to seven years if the country’s perennial power outage is sorted out, he says.
Aliko Dangote, Africa’s leading industrialist and president of the Dangote Group, can only imagine what Nigeria could achieve with a consistent power supply.
“Can you believe that this country has been growing at seven percent with no power, with zero power? It’s a joke,” he says.
Nigerians have lived with the ‘no power or poor power’ status, in part due to a lack of political will by previous governments and the Nigerian factor—a euphemism for graft, nepotism, neglect of state-owned assets and underinvestment.
Industrial, commercial and domestic consumers of electricity have therefore resorted to producing their own electricity using gas, generators, solar panels and inverters. The Federal Ministry of Power estimates that these off-grid methods account for up to 6,000 megawatts (MW), against the 4,500MW generated and supplied by the grid. Global Business Intelligence estimated that Nigerians spent around $455 million on generators in 2011. Added to this ignoble expense is the negative impact to health, wellbeing and the environment.
The successful sale and handover, last November, of 11 distribution companies (Discos) and four generation companies (Gencos), formerly owned by the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), to Nigerian and foreign investors completed the first phase of the power sector privatization process.
Following the positive market reaction to this, the Nigerian government decided to partially privatize a further 10 Gencos with a combined installed capacity of 5,000MW, located mostly in the Niger Delta region and known as the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP). The federal, state and local tiers of government own these Gencos and have invested more than $8 billion in them through a special purpose vehicle, The Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC). The sale of an 80% stake of these Gencos is expected to be completed by the end of 2014.
For the Nigerian authorities, the ongoing sale of its power sector assets is expected to rake in more than $10 billion and new regulatory responsibilities, as successor companies struggle to comply with Post Acquisition Plan and budget agreements.
For the new investors, industrial spats, costly infrastructure revamps, bank debts, consumer agitation and hopefully, consumer satisfaction and corporate profits lie ahead.
For consumers, the entire exercise has resurrected hope. Their angst and heightened expectations has now been redirected to the new players.
For starters, the $24.7 million, three-year contract given to a Canadian firm, Manitoba Hydro International (MHI) in 2013, to manage the country’s electricity transmission system is being reviewed by the authorities over allegations of non-performance and over extension of MHI’s management. MHI is expected to upgrade the human and technical assets of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), one of the successor companies of the unbundled PHCN.
Transmission is crucial to the success of the industry. The last time there was a grid enhancement was in 1987. The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) is the only PHCN company still owned by the government and is considered the weakest link in the country’s electricity network. The network currently has the capability to distribute less than 6,000MW of electricity and covers less than 40% of the country’s land area. Experts have warned that unless the government revamps the transmission leg of the value chain, the entire privatization exercise might end up in a cul-de-sac.
Upon completion of MHI’s work schedule in 2016, Nigeria’s transmission network should be capable of moving about 20,000MW of electricity and cover more than 80% of Nigeria’s land area. The minister of power, Chinedu Nebo, says around $3.7 billion in funding is needed for the transmission system to reach this target.
Alex Oti, managing director of Diamond Bank, says Nigeria’s banks are willing to lend more cash to the industry, notwithstanding the bank’s collective contribution of over $4.5 billion to the sector since the commencement of the privatization exercise.
The government says it needs $2.8 trillion (N464 trillion) for infrastructural development in the power sector in the next 30 years, under its National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan.
Government has also stated that the energy sector will require $880 billion (N144 trillion) during the period while the power sector will need $10 billion (N1.6 trillion) for generation and distribution in the next five years to add 5,000MW to the national grid. It added that the transmission network needs $1.5 billion (N240 billion) over the next five years.
To overcome investors’ fears about the technical capability and credit worthiness of the PHCN successor companies, government has created the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET), a state-owned independent off-taker, underpinned by an $800-million partial risk guarantee from the World Bank. Capitalized with $550 million and chaired by finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the NBET will purchase power from Gencos before reselling to Discos, thereby avoiding potential defaults. This is, however, meant to be a short-term measure, as successor firms begin to enforce new electricity tariffs driven by their respective investments and market forces.
Adeola Adenikinju, the director at the Centre for Petroleum, Energy Economics and Law at the University of Ibadan says Nigeria is moving into uncharted territory.
“Very few countries have surrendered their power sector to the private sector the way we have done. We cannot afford any regulatory laxity or incompetence. We must learn from some of the regulatory lapses that we currently experience in the telecommunication and airline industries.”
The next three to five years will be the litmus test for the sector. Success will be determined by how well new investors navigate through the maze of gas supplies, gas prices, political risks, the domestic and international economic climate, access to capital, revenue projections, the quality of inherited assets and liabilities, and interest and exchange rates.
Nigeria is expected to benefit from United States president Barack Obama’s Power Africa initiative, a five-year, $7-billion partnership between the US and the governments of Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Tanzania and Mozambique. An additional $9 billion is expected to be added by the private sector. Already, Nigerian businessman and chairman of Heirs Holdings, Tony Elumelu has backed the plan with a pledge of $2.5 billion.
The Africa Development Bank (AfDB) has also earmarked close to $3 billion for Africa’s power sector over the next five years.
In February 2014, the Nigerian government signed a $350 million power financing deal with General Electric to support the construction of small-scale power projects across the country.
The Nigerian power industry may be awash with funds but no one can predict if projections to generate over 10,000MW of electricity by 2015 and 40,000MW by 2020 will be met. The director-general of the BPE, Benjamin Dikki, has given the market a two to three year period before power supply stabilizes.
“Expectations will need to be managed for the public to understand that the power sector cannot be built overnight and that this country is recovering from decades of underinvestment and corresponding crumbling infrastructure,” he says.
“This will be a defining year for this sector and one in which Nigerians will either begin to applaud the emergence of the proverbial light at the end of their tunnel or curse their stars,” says Peju Adebajo, the managing director of Mouka, a Lagos-based manufacturer of foam products.
“Whichever way the pendulum swings, both realities will not be cheap. Billions of dollars will either have been money well spent or lost, and the opportunity to improve the political economy and human development index of a fourth of Africa’s population may also have been either fast tracked or stunted.”

Ease The Power Pain Please

I have not worked a day in my life, because I love what I do. The daily adrenalin rush of live television is a necessity and I thrive on the pressure. Recently, CNBC Africa went global with an exclusive interview with President Jacob Zuma. To prove my mettle as a financial journalist, I asked a number of tough questions. The more challenging aspect was that CNBC Europe had booked a satellite link the following morning, directly into their live shows. We would cross ‘live’ six times during the morning into the global CNBC network and introduce segments of the president’s interview live from Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa.
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Each of the first five live crossings to London was a nerve-wracking two-minute ad lib leading into the interview. It was as though this is what I had been training for the last 13 years. Five crossings down, and congratulatory emails started streaming in from our global network affiliates, the most notable from CNBC Europe’s Head of News and Programming, Patrick Allen: “Watching from New York, very happy with the outcome, interview good, report great, you and shot look great, bravo.” But in the live television business, it is not over until it is over.
Our biggest moment was still to come – our live link directly into Squawk US. The controllers out of the US spoke to me: “Bronwyn, this is New Jersey, we are linking you into Squawk US. This is CNBC US, the biggest financial broadcaster in the world, they have a very different broadcast style, no mistakes tolerated. You must conduct a precise 45-second ad lib, then throw forward to a 15-second sound bite from President Zuma.”
My heart was pounding and my knees shaking, as
I waited for the cue from Becky Quick, the CNBC US anchor. Then it happened.
“Thank you Becky – emerging markets are out of favor and their currencies are all under pressure. South Africa has one of the most volatile currencies in the emerging market space having fallen some 17% against the dollar over 2013. Many economists in South Africa feel ongoing allegations of corruption against the ruling party and unrest in the mining sector are fueling further rand weakness. In a CNBC Africa exclusive, I sat down with South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma and asked him what he thought was behind the rand’s fall.”
And just as suddenly as it began, it was over. South Africa’s minute of fame on the world’s biggest financial network had come and gone. How did it go? The broad smile on my producer’s face and her thumbs-up indicated it was a clean execution. My reputation intact, I was ready to face another day in the world of live broadcasting.

‘I Have Not Worked  A Day In My Life’

Hester Maria Mende has just arrived in Scotland after a marathon three-month holiday crossing continents, cultures and time zones. She is yet to discard the boarding passes she has collected – from Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney and Auckland – on this recent trip. Yet, call this retired 67-year-old former South African IT developer and opera singer a globetrotter, and she is not satisfied.
For Mende, the world is just not enough.
Late December, Mende was basking on a sunny beach in Thailand when she received news of her clearing the first round of interviews for a one-way trip to Mars in 2025. Now one of 1,058 chosen candidates (from a total of 200,000 applicants from around the world), she will be in the final two rounds that will determine man’s foray on Mars soil.
She harbors no doubts she will make it.
“I believe myself to be the perfect candidate because the people in my age group and my circumstances are the ideal cannon fodder,” says Mende.
“I absolutely want to go. To be a part of that first step will be the ideal way of ending my life. We die anyway, so dying in the midst of this exhilarating endeavor will be fantastic for me.”
Early last year, Mende had spent R300 ($27) in all to apply for the mission after succumbing to an online recruitment notice. She had read that Mars One, a not-for-profit foundation, was seeking to establish human life on the red planet. Probe her further and the real reason emerges. Retirement. And the death of a loved one.
“I lost my husband [in an armed robbery attack in Johannesburg] seven years ago, I have no children and although I have five siblings, I realized that post-retirement, you really need to find a support system of your own. I have led a full life. Nobody depends on me, nobody’s life will stop when I am gone.”
Mende confesses she withdrew from the world for several years after her husband’s demise. Signing up to be a part of the Mars mission added a new purpose to her life – and death.
Mende brushes off any negative speculation about the possibility of humans on Mars with the conviction in her voice. “There is a lot not known. Things can also wrong along the way, but I am sure there will at least be one settlement there for scientific purposes,” she says.
At the moment, Mende is preparing for the next round of interviews. While the first tested her mental strength, the next two will determine her physical agility to withstand the rigorous eight-year training that will ensue. If selected, she will be one of only 24 to 40 candidates training in teams of four. The team with the greatest chance of survival will be the first to undertake the seven-month journey – without a return ticket – to Mars.
If Mende is one of them, she will be 78 at the time.
Mende, who ended her career implementing IT projects for Eskom in Johannesburg, says she has always tread off the beaten track. A classical singer, she has also sung on national radio, TV, and performed at operas across South Africa.
Singing is something she will miss on the red planet, as the atmosphere is not conducive for sound. And what if she does not qualify?
“I hope with every fiber in my body that I will. I am trying not to be fixated, but I believe my sense of humor will get me up there.”
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A total of 1,058 global candidates have cleared the first round of Mars One’s mission to the red planet of which 586 are male and 472 are female. In this group, 54 are from Africa, with more men (42) from the continent than women. On the Mars One website, the project’s co-founder Bas Lansdorp describes the 1,058 candidates as the first tangible glimpse into what the new human settlement will look like. “We anticipate our candidates to become celebrities in their towns, cities, and in many cases, countries. It’s about to get very interesting,” he says. FORBES WOMAN AFRICA connected with some of the future female astronauts who are from or have origins in Africa.
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Alexandra Doyle, 28
Law student, South Africa
Specializing in international law and criminology, Doyle worked full-time as a dental nurse in order to support herself through college, also at times dabbling in acting and modeling. “I know in my heart I am right for the Mars mission and have this funny feeling that everything I have done in life until now has been in preparation for it,” she says. Least expecting to be chosen, Doyle says she was overcome with shock when she first heard of her selection. “I am looking forward to proving myself in the next rounds. The ultimate dream of sustaining human life on another planet is my dream too. And I think that a life spent in the pursuit of a dream is better than any other, whatever the outcome.” And what would she take with her if she were chosen? “My sense of adventure, and a hot water bottle!”
Adriana Marais, 30
Research student, South Africa
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Completing her PhD in the University of KwaZulu-Natal, her abiding interest is astrophysics. “Research in the field of quantum biology contributes to the development of renewable energy technologies essential for our continued existence on this planet, and perhaps others,” she says. Having decided as a child that she wanted to be an astronaut, she became fascinated with quantum mechanics, and the eternal question about life. “In my opinion, if life can exist on earth, it must also exist or have existed elsewhere. I will be prepared to sacrifice my joys, sorrows and day-to-day life for this idea, this adventure, this achievement, that would not be my own, but of all humanity.” She is keen to know more about her fellow Martians, and thinks they will be some of the most interesting people on earth. “The first Martians will need to be multi-talented and quick-learning. What sets me apart is my dream of being part of the discovery of evidence of extra-terrestrial life: a goal which becomes a more realistic when Mars is my backyard,” she says.
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Kristy Flower, 20
Nursing student, Zimbabwe
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A first year nursing degree student, Flower has adventure in her genes. Her family has moved to New Zealand, and the rest have ventured from Zimbabwe to Australia and England. “My parents and grandparents are incredibly strong-willed. Both my grandparents served in the Rhodesian war and in World War II when my grandmother worked as a registered nurse.” Flower’s keenness on the Mars mission is to be at the forefront of knowledge and exploration. “I want to be able to contribute not only to my community but also to mankind and leave a mark on future discoveries that will benefit us all. This is an amazing opportunity to make a difference and I will do anything to ensure I am the best candidate and most capable person for the job,” she says.
Maggie Wernich, 51
Personal assistant, South Africa
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A divorcee with two children, ages 20 and 25, Wernich says her family structure is one of support and respect for another’s dreams, and that she has always harbored the wish to travel to space. When she first saw the Mars One website 10 months ago it was a dream come true. “We need to realize orthodox structures and outdated belief systems have no place in the future of our children and the continuation of a healthy environment on earth,” she says. “It is every individual’s right to decide how and where they choose to live their lives.” The reason she chose to be a part of the Mars experiment was to explore different ways to live. “This opportunity will be a breakthrough for women, especially in Africa. It is my belief that older people needn’t retire to await death in a facility or system that is socially acceptable. It will be an honor to spend the remainder of my life as a colonist on Mars, to plant the seeds of life for my children’s children.”
Esther Kabuchi Kanyiri, 42 Dentist/pharmacist, Kenya
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Kanyiri is a mother to two teenaged children, and yet, has chosen to go to Mars. Her reason? “To explore the outside world and better the human race. I like being a pioneer and believe I have skills and the knowledge necessary for this process. The selection process requires individuals with different talents who are able to live away from family and in seclusion and maintain sanity. The individual will also need to be able to make decisions individually and trust the decisions made by others for them. I believe I have demonstrated this in my life as I have lived away from family and friends and still focused on my goals. I like spontaneity and embarking on missions most people think are impossible. I have an open mind and am ready to learn, even for survival,” she says.

‘Mars Will Be  The Ideal Way Of  Ending My Life’

Sibongile Sambo spent most of her childhood looking up at the big tubes of metal in the sky. Each time she heard a helicopter or a plane, she would stop everything and imagine how it would feel to be 40,000 feet above sea level.
In her early twenties, Sambo applied to be an airhostess and it had seemed she had the job in the bag. She passed all the written and physical tests and impressed the panel with her knowledge of aviation, but there was one small problem.
“I was too short (1.5m) and at that time they were still really strict about the 1.6m height. I understand why. It’s because they needed people who could easily reach the cabin and be able to take out and pack in the clients’ bags.”
Sambo was later offered a position as crew on a smaller domestic flight, but she had just completed her degree and, after much deliberation, passed up on her dream for a desk job. Years later, while working at De Beers, she found just the opportunity to dream again.
“The position I was in allowed me to fly in their private jets, to all other operations to either Botswana or Namibia. That rekindled the actual love for private jets. And I liked the idea of private jets because you don’t have to wait in  queues at the airports.”
Sambo quit her job to focus on her new love of private jets. She registered her company under Sibongile Rejoice Sambo Aviation (SRS Aviation) and naïvely applied for a tender the government was offering aviation firms for cargo transportation.
“I took it very lightly. You know when you submit a bid, it’s your first time and you actually don’t believe you will get it. And in this industry, I thought it would take me much longer than it did,” she says.
Sambo won the bid and had to raise R1 million ($92, 890) to get the plane from Dubai to South Africa to move the cargo. She applied for loans, but was turned away from businesses that said aviation was risky and her lack of experience was a disadvantage. There was one person Sambo could always count on, her mother.
“She was working as a nurse in London. She came back, released her pension money and asked her sister to also assist with her pension money,” says Sambo.
The job went better than expected and Sambo managed to repay everyone. SRS Aviation began to generate a steady clientele and the money rolled in. She became the first South African woman to own an aviation company, which is 100% black female-owned. Despite her accomplishments, she was often criticized for her lack of experience and many thought she would not survive in the male-dominated industry.
In 2010, disaster stuck. Clients began to pull their planes from SRS Aviation, in what Sambo believes was a plan devised to sabotage her. So, when the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) came to inspect her operation, there were no planes in her hangars and no recorded flights, as she was no longer managing the planes that had  once operated under her license. Sambo lost her license.
“It has been such a roller-coaster. The business took off very well from 2004 to 2007. In 2008, we started seeing a little bit of a slowdown. In 2009, we saw the jet fuel hike, and in 2010 the recession came. So, we experienced a huge dip and I basically retrenched everyone.”
In 2013, Sambo reacquired her license and business began to boom. She currently has seven employees and generates an annual turnover of R5 million ($462,850), which she says is little in comparison to their R35-R50 million turnover during the good days.
Over the years, Sambo has received recognition for her achievements in the industry. In 2007, Fortune Magazine named her a ‘Leader of Tomorrow’, and in 2009 she was nominated for the Queen Victoria Memorial Award by the Europe Business Assembly in London. Last year, she was placed on the FORBES ‘10 Young Africans Millionaires to Watch’ list.
“I wish I could tell people that it doesn’t look as easy as you read about. It made me feel happy that I didn’t lose hope and just let my dream die. I persevered and I hung on to some of my investments, which helped me get back on track.”
SRS Aviation offers services that include: VIP charter, air cargo charter, tourist transfers and film work. It has expanded into supplying aircraft spare parts for Boeing and Airbus and is looking at handling ground equipment for airports.
“I still don’t own any airplanes. I still lease people’s airplanes, so they come and go on my license. That is a challenge because I can’t really be completely in control of the particular machine. Therefore, I can’t really control my time.”
Being in an industry that is not female-dominated has made Sambo a role model. She has proven that when it comes to dreaming, the sky is certainly not the limit.

Reach For  The Sky

Hester Maria Mende has just arrived in Scotland after a three-month holiday crossing continents, cultures and time zones. She is yet to discard the boarding passes she has collected from Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney and Auckland on this recent trip. Call this retired 67-year-old former South African IT developer and opera singer a globetrotter, and she is not satisfied.
For Mende, the world is not enough.
Late December, Mende was basking on a sunny beach in Thailand when she received news of her clearing the first round of interviews for a one-way trip to Mars in 2025. Now, one of 1,058 chosen candidates, from a total of 200,000 from around the world, she will be in the final two rounds that will determine man’s foray on Mars soil.
She has no doubts she will make it.
“I believe myself to be the perfect candidate for the first mission because the people in my age group and my circumstances are the ideal cannon fodder,” Mende tells FORBES AFRICA.
“I absolutely want to go. To be on another planet, to be a part of that first step will be the ideal way of ending my life. We die anyway, so dying in the midst of this exhilarating endeavor will be fantastic for me.”
Early last year, Mende spent R300 ($27) to apply for the mission. She read that Mars One, a non-profit foundation, was seeking to establish human life on the red planet and she was immediately hooked.
“I have always been keen on science-fiction, but here was a chance to live my dream, experience space in my lifetime,” says Mende.
Probe her further and the real reasons emerge. Retirement and the death of a loved one.
“I lost my husband [in an armed robbery attack in Johannesburg] seven years ago, I have no children and although I have five siblings, I realized that post-retirement, you really need to find a support system of your own. I have led a full life. Nobody depends on me, nobody’s life will stop when I am gone.”
Mende confesses she withdrew from the world for several years after her husband’s demise. Signing up to be a part of the Mars mission added a new purpose to her life—and death.
At the moment, Mende is preparing body and mind for the next round of interviews due shortly. While the first round tested her mental strength, the next two levels will determine her physical agility to withstand the rigorous eight-year training that will ensue. If selected, she will be one of only 24 to 40 candidates training in teams of four. The team with the greatest chance of survival will be the first to undertake the seven-month journey—without a return ticket.
If Mende is one of them, she will be 78.
On the Mars One website, the project’s co-founder Bas Lansdorp describes the candidates as our first tangible glimpse into what the new human settlement will look like.
The website states public interest will help finance the project; the estimated cost of dispatching the first team is $6 billion.
Mende and her teammates have already been briefed about the drill.
“There will be ample work to accomplish for the first team,” she says.
Hydroponics—a method of growing plants in water rather than soil—will have to be established, the settlement will have to be maintained and new ways of survival devised.
Mende, who ended her career implementing IT projects for state-owned power utility Eskom in Johannesburg, says she has always walked off the beaten track.
“I always enjoyed being at the forefront of new disciplines. I started in IT when computers were not widely known, I started on project management when it was new,” she says.
Alongside a busy career, Mende, a trained classical singer, also sang on national radio, TV, and performed at operas across South Africa.
Singing is something she will miss on the red planet as the atmosphere is not conducive for sound.
And what if she does not qualify?
“I hope with every fiber in my body that I will. I am trying not to be fixated, but I believe my sense of humor will get me up there.”

‘I Want To Die On Mars And Hope My Sense Of Humor Gets Me There’

Overnight, Mandla Maseko went from an unknown DJ from a township to a media sensation making history as the first black African to go to space. Even he’s surprised.
“I remember years back, I think a year or two, I Googled myself and only found one picture on the third page of results. Now, when I Google myself, I’m on the first page,” says Maseko.
Maseko grew up in Mabopane, in the Soshanguve township, north of Pretoria. As a young boy, he enjoyed space films like Armageddon and Apollo 13. But the idea of one day becoming an astronaut was unimaginable. He dreamt of being a lawyer or a policeman.
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“We were not brought up to think that we could be bigger than big. But I always knew that I was destined for greater things.”
After high school, Maseko studied civil engineering at university but dropped out because of financial difficulties. He then had a line of temporary jobs including a dead-end sales job where he earned R10 ($1) an hour.
“I said to them, ‘Guys this is how much I spend a day and this is how much I’m getting a day. So if you look at it, I’m not really earning anything’… Then I quit.”
While at home, lounging on the couch and listening to the radio, the unemployed Maseko heard about the opportunity of a lifetime. Axe Apollo Space Academy was giving 23 people a free trip to space. Step one in the process was to send a picture of yourself jumping off from anywhere. Maseko sent an image of himself jumping off a wall at his house. He originally wanted to jump off the roof, but his mother did not like that idea.
The picture secured a call from the judges, who asked why the 25 year old wanted to go to space.
“I want to defy the laws of gravity. And possibly go down in history as the first black South African in space.”
Maseko, along with 29 other contestants, made it to the next round of the competition which was held in Parys, a town in the Free State province of South Africa. The contestants were faced with a number of challenges, including the infamous vomit comet.
“You stand up against the wall, the walls start spinning and then the floor disappears. So you’re standing on the edge, being pushed by the G-force up against the wall. The challenge was to push yourself up against the G-force and pick up five flags beneath your feet and put them above your head, one by one.”
The second challenge involved skydiving 10,000 feet above the ground then dropping sandbags on targets while plummeting. The final six contestants were put into an air combat jet that spun and flipped around.
“They wanted to see if you were going to vomit or pass out. Immediately after getting off, we had to write a test… I was fine. I’m a typical township boy. We don’t vomit in such challenges,” says Maseko with a chuckle.
The last leg of the competition was held at the Global Space Camp in Orlando, Florida in the Unites States. Maseko was one of three South Africans representing his country. He felt like a tiny star in the galaxy when he found out that there were 109 contestants representing 75 countries, all fighting for the same dream.
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The week’s tasks included G-force, an obstacle course, target shooting, a zipline, air combat flight and zero gravity flight.
“We were divided into groups and we had to construct a rocket. My group wasn’t successful but we had team spirit… Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, was looking for three qualities: bravery, enthusiasm and teamwork.”
That night they had a graduation ceremony where all 109 contestants received a certificate of completion. Then, the big announcement that changed 23 lives forever.
“They called the first guy and I was at the back taking pictures, thinking to myself that they will call a South Africa way later, like the 10th or the 11th person. To my surprise, after calling the first guy they call my name. I was holding an iPad taking pictures, thinking, ‘Wow, really! God is now showing off.’”
The victory was bittersweet. Three hours prior to the announcement, the news of Nelson Mandela’s passing had made world headlines. He was one of Maseko’s childhood heroes.
“It felt like Mandela was like ‘I’ve run the race and I’ve completed the course, now here’s the torch Mandla. Go as a young South African and fire up the youth. Run this course and take it to new heights.’ And in my case take it to space.”
Across the world, media was abuzz as countries celebrated their new space champions. Maseko and the organizers decided to keep the good news a secret for two weeks while the nation mourned their hero.
“He broke new ground as the first black president of South Africa and I wanted my name to resonate in the same light as his. In years to come, they’ll ask who the first black president was and they will say Mandela and they will ask who the first black South African in space was and my name will come. Even if I become a quarter of what he was, it’ll be fine.”
Weeks later, South Africans would hear the news of Maseko and everyone wanted a piece of him. He was noticed on the streets, his picture was splashed across the front pages of newspapers and he became a regular on radio. For Maseko, his big moment came when he was invited to President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation address and was even mentioned in the speech.
Although the mission into space is in late 2015, Maseko often dreams of his first moments in space.
“I see myself at the moment where we are sub-orbiting and I see the huge blue and white round ball that is called Earth. If I get to make a call, I will call the president. I’ll sing his song ‘Umshini wami’ (a Zulu struggle song). It won’t be a dull moment,” he says.
After space, Maseko wants to study towards becoming an astronaut. He wants to give back to South Africa and continue to inspire youth to reach for their dreams. But ultimately he wants to fly back to the United States and go on another mission into space where he dreams of placing the South African flag on the moon.
A dream too far? I don’t think so, after all he’s already going to space.

One Small Step For A DJ  One Giant Leap For Africa

Munhava, an area in Beira, Mozambique, is tense. The protests begin at midday with burning tires and the opening of the first shebeens. Acrid smoke hazes across the sky in the searing heat. By 2PM the mob has resorted to violence
Now, in the humidity of dusk, it is eerily calm as we wait patiently for darkness and the first wheezes of diesel generators from the more upmarket dwellings in the near distance.
The air is rich with fried fish, excrement and kerosene. A vivid stench of poverty framed by the sea. Across the slum, in a small landfill, scavengers rake over debris and waste before burning the rest. The laundry swinging on the line in front of me is trackmarked with soot.
A small riot on the ragged edge of Mozambique’s second largest city may not seem like a big deal but the dispute, aimed at the local municipality, was over what is arguably the most contentious issue facing African slums today—electricity.
It echoes a pattern of unrest we are seeing from Kibera in Kenya to Khayelitsha in South Africa and across the Sahel. Electricity is fought for and fought over in the poorest corners of the world. All around us in Munhava, makeshift cables and wires hang dangerously from tin shacks, so tightly packed they blend into each other. For those without the savvy to misappropriate electricity from the local provider, EDM, there is little option but unreliable and inefficient sources of energy. Somali store-owners pile their wares high with firewood, charcoal, candles, kerosene, battery-powered flashlights and palm oil. The deeper scandal is evident on these humble wooden counters across which the poor hand over the little they have for scant solutions. According to some estimates, the poorest of the world pays 20% of the world’s lighting bill, but receives only 1% of the benefits.
Kerosene and paraffin swallows 25% to 30% of a family’s income in Munhava. There are other costs too. Across from where I sit, the one-room shack, lit by kerosene at dusk, will probably have concentrations of pollution up to ten times the level that is considered safe.
At dusk each day, throughout sub-Saharan Africa, some 600 million people, or around 66% of the region’s population, prepare for the darkness and life without electricity. In rural communities, that number climbs to a remarkable 85%.
Sipping a warm beer from a broken refrigerator, I reflect that darkness has dogged even my recent travels across the world. On the road into Beira, I  reflect on the need for mainstream debate around energy poverty in Africa.
Energy is needed to reduce the world’s greatest child killer, acute respiratory infection. Up to 1.6 million people worldwide die from exposure to excessive levels of smoke in their homes from cooking fires. A quarter of all these deaths occur in Africa.
When I travel across Africa and ask people from all backgrounds what they need from electricity, the answer is often as simple as a light at night or a simple stove.
Yet when I sit in squatter homes in Kinshasa, where power is available but subject to rolling blackouts that can last days and weeks, and ask the same question, I am given insight into the new Africa. There is a need to power laptops, televisions, refrigerators and air conditioners.
No two situations are the same in Africa. But whose needs get priority? It appears the latter, the aspiring consumers. Today, the direct link between economic growth and electricity on the continent is finally placing this issue on the international agenda.
Last year, the United States president, Barack Obama, launched Power Africa, an initiative that will commit $7 billion over the next five years to support the energy needs of Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, and Tanzania.
The human cost of work productivity in Africa due to the lack of access to electricity cannot be underestimated. If a population lacks adequate access to power it blocks any significant economic progress and in turn stability. It’s an issue that makes me think about the burgeoning youth population. With the competitive edge that technology provides, unreliable access to electricity hinders African youth.
Today, young people in Africa make up almost 40% of the working population, yet 60% are unemployed. Increasing energy access has the potential to boost sustainable development, as well as build human capital on the African continent. Without electricity, hopeful entrepreneurs are not able to gain access to market information and technologies to expand their businesses and schools are not able to prepare students for a knowledge-based economy.
In many ways, Africa has two key energy problems: there are many millions of people who have no grid extended to them, and won’t have in the foreseeable future, and the energy production in most countries is insufficient to meet the demand of those already on the grid, let alone those not yet connected. That is why power failures are so common in developed Africa.
But what are the solutions? Accelerating access to energy, particularly clean, renewable resources such as wind, water, the sun, and biomass among others, is ideal. It reduces pollution that contributes to climate change, while promoting Africa’s productivity and economic growth.
Such initiatives have the potential to make a difference in the lives of millions of Africans but it still isn’t enough. Collectively, the private and public sectors must work together more to strengthen Africa’s technical infrastructure to expand access to energy.
Everywhere, I read of radical solutions, from oceanic wind farms to mass solar power programs in the Sahara and hydropower on the Congo River to a scheme initiated by Harvard University alumni to extract energy from ordinary soil.
Some investors are backing jatropha, a plant whose seeds produce an oil for burning in generators. There is also an effort to tap geothermal energy. The Great Rift Valley, from Eritrea to Mozambique, could produce 7,000 megawatts. Kenya hopes to get 20% of its energy from geothermal sources by 2020.
To understand the existing and realistic scope of alternative energy solutions, I recently visited the Bisasar Road landfill site in Durban, South Africa. I was there to produce a short film around a project that converts landfill waste, a form of biomass, to methane gas and in turn electricity.
In Durban, trash is quietly and effectively making enough energy to sustain 3,800 households. Peter Seagreen, the sprightly 74-year-old mechanical engineer in charge of the Durban site, says converting trash to electricity would have been beyond imagination when he was growing up as a ships engineer. Bounding around the site like a teenager, he marvels at the technology at his disposal but bemoans the lack of knowledge around its potential.
“We are converting rubbish into electricity yet the local community barely realizes we can achieve this. It’s a miracle if you ask me. It also makes me wonder why this is not being expanded across Africa. We are the only ones doing this, yet Africa isn’t short of landfill waste.”
Arguably the most exciting thing about the prospect of creating electricity from gas is the dividend it could provide for gas-rich nations like Mozambique, Tanzania and potentially South Africa. The possibility of gas pipelines powering and empowering remote communities with electricity from similar turbines is attractive. It is a game-changing dynamic that could liberate rural areas.
Of course the argument between robust and pragmatic solutions to energy poverty, and the role gas could play in it, are tempered by the debate around global warming and fossil fuels.
But, time is not on our side. Over the border from Mozambique, in Malawi, the booming charcoal trade is relentlessly damaging the nation’s reputation as an evergreen country. Malawi has the highest deforestation rate in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. The disappearance of forest cover has also resulted in massive soil erosion and siltation in low-lying areas, leading to flooding that has been disrupting operations at Malawi’s biggest hydroelectric dam, the Nkula Hydroelectric Power Station.
Then again, in Malawi and elsewhere in the SADC region, charcoal’s attractiveness to impoverished locals is not difficult to understand. A sizable bag in an urban area costs around $7. For an average family of seven, this might last them nearly a week, but if they were to use electricity for all their cooking and heating, they would probably spend more than $15 during this time. Not to mention the high cost of electrical cooking appliances such as hotplates and heaters. A new hotplate costs around $30, beyond the reach of ordinary Malawians, most of whom live below the poverty level of $2 a day. In contrast, charcoal stoves, made in China, are around $2.
What the success of the Durban project shows us is that we should be looking towards expanding energy solutions that are already in place. Landfills, often in the heart of African cities, form a center point for the poorest of the poor. Using them to generate electricity, a proven science, could open the door for other more practical solutions.
Today, the fundamental obstacles to energy have been researched and established. The barriers, while complex, can be overcome, and international co-operation can help. Technology is also on our side. We do know how to build power systems and meet energy demand efficiency. What is required is a political prioritization. Energy access must become a continent-wide priority.
Innovation could provide the best chance we have to transform the energy landscape but it is also sobering to think that around 90% of the world’s designers, our greatest minds, spend all their time working on solutions to the problems of the richest 10% of the world’s customers. What if they were to use their expertise to solve the greater problem in the developing world?
African townships draw in and absorb young people from rural areas. They are also places of unbridled ambition and hope, not necessarily idleness and squalor.
In ‘Shadow Cities’, a book that describes a tour of slums across the globe, Robert Neuwirth recalls that New York’s Upper East Side was once a shantytown. He suggests that all cities start as mud. But, in the modern connected technological world we know, the odds are stacked against the slum dwellers when there is no energy to power ambition.

Category: Technology

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