Kamau Gachigi: Success stories from Kenya's first makerspace
Kamau Gachigi: 肯尼亚首个创客空间的成功故事
At Gearbox, Kamau Gachigi empowers Kenya's next generation of creators to prototype and fabricate their visions. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
of Africa will have doubled.
will be African at that point,
and daunting all at once.
for the first time in the modern era,
to bully everybody else.
to have to have economies
庞大的经济体
are going to be very young.
have a plan for this economic growth --
远见2030(Vision 2030)——
on industrialization.
Industrial Revolution right now,
and biological worlds.
massive interconnectivity
of artificial intelligence and robotics,
人工智能和机器人,
and are used to right now
is a lot greater, in many ways,
was industrializing, for example.
of person that you need
on the continent.
缺少工程师人才。
the number of engineers
when they were industrializing,
who are studying engineering
in auditing firms and banks,
doing accounting and so on
的时间在按计划
to do my undergrad and postgrad education
接受本科和研究生教育。
in countries, environments,
that you required,
for about three years in Japan
to having good equipment,
良好的设备环境,
at the University of Nairobi,
and be on the continent.
I was really quite useless,
毫无用武之地,
that I had become accustomed to available.
所有设备这里都没有。
find very bright ideas in their minds
things that I knew
to the challenge of industrialization.
and became quite entrepreneurial
像企业家那样去做,
to buy the equipment that we required.
来购买我们想要的设备。
out of MIT, called the Fab Labs.
叫创造实验室(Fab Labs)。
with not very expensive equipment,
没有很贵的设备,
a government official
where I was teaching.
这样一套实验室。
of innovations coming through,
in this context at the university,
from different disciplines
together in the same space.
他们是彼此隔离的。
who weren't engineers at all
who had nothing to do with the university,
differently from one another,
is really good for innovation.
came and said to me,
“Kamau,那些整天沉迷在
who spend most of the time in the Fab Lab
考试都要不及格了。”
so well in certain things
and offering services for money.
weren't focusing on their studies.
what a good problem to have.
I'm an academician.
things were a bit too bureaucratic,
with people who, in Nairobi,
与内罗毕的一些
提供空间的人打成一片,
and things like that.
are really quite famous.
which we are setting up right now.
a wide range of equipment,
tools that I mentioned,
so you come in, you pay,
and do whatever it is that you want,
做任何你想做的事情,
an engineer, necessarily.
are setting up a small company.
开始创建小公司,
费用提供这些空间;
and are able to set up their offices.
想要设立自己的办公室。
已经运行一段时间了。
for a certain period of time.
to accommodate all of this
that is really quite active.
over here is Douglas,
who was really active in the Fab Lab.
is a copper sheet.
that the client came to him and said,
客户直接过来跟他说,
for a pay-as-you-go system."
来做即付即用的系统。”
and services for very poor people
把产品和服务带给贫穷的人,
because they're able to pay a little bit,
to pilot a new idea that they had,
一个新构思进行试点,
what the circuit will be
to an etching process --
对电路板进行填充。
using this robot.
a day or something to solder by hand,
可能得花费一天的时间,
using this machine.
the entire order within Gearbox,
完成整个订单。
what we provided right now,
a company in China to do this,
it would have taken a long time.
得花上很长的时间。
wouldn't take small orders,
又接了更大的单子,
is really very important,
解决这个问题真是非常重要。
付诸实践过程中非常重要的环节,
within the progress of the business idea
go back and make corrections and so on.
不断反复修正你的想法。
of a digital fabrication machine.
it doubles as a plasma cutter
它兼具等离子切割机
the cutting of plate and sheet metal,
切割金属板材成为了可能,
a design on the computer
得到你要的形状。
it will cut the shapes you want.
and put on a spindle,
by my Head of Engineering.
a lot of people
and become a good story for us."
成为我们的传奇。”
using his machine
for Isuzu truck fabrication in Nairobi,
制造商切割金属的公司,
equipment manufacturer in Nairobi
an industrial robot
the population growth being what it is,
因为人口增长很快,
are looking very closely
大众、标致、雷诺,
Volkswagen, Peugeot, Renault,
they've been there a long time.
planning to assemble vehicles
在全国范围内进行生产。
to manufacture in the country.
他们雇佣的员工,
to train lots of people that they'd hire,
for the economy,
their parts for the vehicles
is something that's very important
and to have very productive economies,
非常有活力的经济,
we're focused on at our space.
another class of customer that he has.
who are actually using very crude tools
of about 44 million people.
are in the informal sector.
at the top left over there
for the marketplace
Wachira up with a bank,
一家银行进行了联合,
to train people from this sector
to buy the machine for themselves.
where they can carry their material,
带着他们的材料来到中心
that have been made really, really fast
for example, out of metal,
金属制造一扇门,
才能做出一扇门,
they might make 10 in a day.
一天可以做 10 扇。
of our population
amount, quite significantly,
so this is really very exciting.
让我们感到非常兴奋。
about a problem that she explained.
都会因为生理周期
every month by young girls
to buy a sanitary towel.
packaged these in bundles of seven to 10,
卫生巾包装成一包,
is unhygienic at the retail level,
拆开卖很不卫生,
of them is too expensive.
which is brilliant, and simple.
聪明又简单的好主意。
can break down the bundles
these sanitary towels
在公众场所和学校的卫生间
in a public space, in a school, and so on.
and it worked really very well,
get the bugs out and so on.
is that the piloting process is possible.
to be able to help her to do this,
企业加速器建立了合作,
with a business accelerator,
取得非常好的效果。
that was done at University of Nairobi
a solar cell into a roof tile
who is an architect,
推销这个屋瓦,说,
who is doing development and say,
来买这种太阳能屋瓦。”
of just the roof tile without the solar."
using the internet of things over time,
物联网的方式进行生产,
of the utility charges for the electricity
back to the grid.
卖回给电网供应商。
quite a few installments.
to show this to somebody kind of famous,
这项技术展示给知名人士,
也提出了同样的想法,
actually presented the same idea,
他们行动得比我们晚——
if it was after us, so --
of course being able to prototype
in this kind of a setting
for the industrialization process,
of a lot of new ways of doing things:
circular production.
for not just industrializing
满足人们的需求来说
that the environment is taken care of.
around who we were as Africans,
作为非洲人意味着什么
未来想成为什么样的人,
and ethnicity and corruption and so on.
adding value to people
为人们提供和增加价值,
to things or materials
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Kamau Gachigi - TechnologistAt Gearbox, Kamau Gachigi empowers Kenya's next generation of creators to prototype and fabricate their visions.
Why you should listen
Dr. Kamau Gachigi is the founding executive director of Gearbox, Kenya's first open makerspace for rapid prototyping, based in Nairobi. Gearbox provides a unique window into Industry 4.0 capabilities to innovators in Kenya, and it offers incubation/acceleration services. Gachigi also co-founded the Africa Innovation Ecosystems Group (AIEG), a company that focuses on creating and managing real-estate based innovation centers of varying scales.
Before establishing Gearbox, Gachigi headed the University of Nairobi's Science and Technology Park, where he founded a fab lab full of manufacturing and prototyping tools in 2009. He then built another lab at the Riruta Satellite in an impoverished neighborhood in the city. Gachigi is a member of the Global Council on the Future of Production under the World Economic Forum and of the consultative advisory group of the World Bank's Partnership for skills in the Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology.
Kamau Gachigi | Speaker | TED.com