Kamau Gachigi: Success stories from Kenya's first makerspace
كاماو قاشيقي: قصص نجاح من أول مركز للعمل في كينيا
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,
في العالم إفريقياً،
and daunting all at once.
for the first time in the modern era,
to bully everybody else.
لمضايقة أي شخص آخر.
to have to have economies
امتلاك قوى اقتصادية
are going to be very young.
have a plan for this economic growth --
خططًا لهذا النمو الاقتصادي...
on industrialization.
Industrial Revolution right now,
and biological worlds.
massive interconnectivity
of artificial intelligence and robotics,
واستخدام الروبوتات،
and are used to right now
أو اعتدنا عليها
is a lot greater, in many ways,
was industrializing, for example.
أثناء تحولهم إلى دول صناعية، مثلا
of person that you need
on the continent.
the number of engineers
عدد المهندسين
when they were industrializing,
عندما اتجهوا إلى الصناعة
who are studying engineering
in auditing firms and banks,
في شركات مراجعة الحسابات والبنوك،
doing accounting and so on
بأعمال المحاسبة وأشياء كهذه
to do my undergrad and postgrad education
دراستي الجامعية والماجستير
in countries, environments,
that you required,
التي قد تحتاج إليها،
for about three years in Japan
ثلاث سنوات في اليابان
to having good equipment,
معدات جيدة،
at the University of Nairobi,
and be on the continent.
وأن أكون في القارة نفسها.
I was really quite useless,
that I had become accustomed to available.
التي قد اعتدت على توفرها.
find very bright ideas in their minds
الذين وجدتهم أفكارا رائعة في أذهانهم
things that I knew
to the challenge of industrialization.
في تحدي التحول الصناعي.
and became quite entrepreneurial
وأتجه نوعاً ما إلى العمل الحر
to buy the equipment that we required.
لشراء المعدات التي نحتاجها.
out of MIT, called the Fab Labs.
في معهد ماساتشوستس للتكنولوجيا.
with not very expensive equipment,
ومعدات غير مرتفعة الثمن بدرجة كبيرة،
a government official
أحد مسؤولي الحكومة
where I was teaching.
التي كنت أدرِّس بها.
of innovations coming through,
in this context at the university,
from different disciplines
together in the same space.
مع بعضهم في نفس المكان.
who weren't engineers at all
لم يكونوا مهندسين أساساً
who had nothing to do with the university,
لا علاقة لهم بالجامعة،
differently from one another,
is really good for innovation.
came and said to me,
في أحد الأيام وقال لي،
who spend most of the time in the Fab Lab
معظم وقتهم في المعمل
so well in certain things
في جوانب محددة
and offering services for money.
ويعرضون خدماتهم مقابل المال.
weren't focusing on their studies.
what a good problem to have.
I'm an academician.
things were a bit too bureaucratic,
روتينية بعض الشيء،
with people who, in Nairobi,
في نيروبي،
لخبراء تكنولوجيا المعلومات
and things like that.
وأشياء مماثلة أخرى.
are really quite famous.
بتكنولوجيا المعلومات.
which we are setting up right now.
ولازلنا نعمل على إنشائه حالياً.
a wide range of equipment,
مجموعة كبيرة من المعدات،
tools that I mentioned,
التي ذكرتها،
so you come in, you pay,
أنت تأتي، تدفع
and do whatever it is that you want,
an engineer, necessarily.
are setting up a small company.
يقومون بإنشاء شركة صغيرة.
and are able to set up their offices.
لكي يصبحوا قادرين على إنشاء أعمالهم.
for a certain period of time.
to accommodate all of this
that is really quite active.
والتي كانت فعالة بشكل كبير.
over here is Douglas,
who was really active in the Fab Lab.
في معمل التصنيع.
is a copper sheet.
that the client came to him and said,
قد طلبها عميل قائلاً،
for a pay-as-you-go system."
لتعمل مع نظام الدفع الفوري."
and services for very poor people
للأشخاص الفقراء جداً
because they're able to pay a little bit,
لأنه يمكنهم من دفع مبلغ بسيط،
to pilot a new idea that they had,
تجربة هذه الفكرة الجديدة التي لديها
what the circuit will be
الذي ستكون عليه الدائرة على الكمبيوتر
to an etching process --
using this robot.
a day or something to solder by hand,
في المعتاد ليقوم به يدوياً،
using this machine.
مستخدماً هذه الآلة.
the entire order within Gearbox,
من خلال صندوق الأدوات،
what we provided right now,
a company in China to do this,
في الصين للقيام بهذا،
it would have taken a long time.
كان الأمر سيأخذ وقتاً طويلاً.
wouldn't take small orders,
is really very important,
هو أمر ذو أهمية،
within the progress of the business idea
فكرة العمل،
go back and make corrections and so on.
والقيام بالتعديلات وغيرها،
of a digital fabrication machine.
لجهاز التصنيع الرقمي.
it doubles as a plasma cutter
the cutting of plate and sheet metal,
من قطع ألواحٍ وصفائحَ المعدن
a design on the computer
التصميم على الكمبيوتر
it will cut the shapes you want.
التي تريدها بسرعة ودقة.
and put on a spindle,
by my Head of Engineering.
a lot of people
and become a good story for us."
using his machine
for Isuzu truck fabrication in Nairobi,
لصناعة الشاحنات في نيروبي،
equipment manufacturer in Nairobi
an industrial robot
the population growth being what it is,
أصبح بهذا الشكل،
are looking very closely
Volkswagen, Peugeot, Renault,
لفولكس فاجن وبيجو ورينو،
they've been there a long time.
وقد كانت هنا منذ فترة طويلة.
planning to assemble vehicles
تخطط لتجميع السيارات
to manufacture in the country.
to train lots of people that they'd hire,
الذين سيقومون بتوظيفهم،
for the economy,
their parts for the vehicles
في شراء أجزاء للمركبات
is something that's very important
and to have very productive economies,
ونمتلك قوة إنتاج اقتصادية،
we're focused on at our space.
another class of customer that he has.
توضح نوعا آخر من العملاء لديه.
who are actually using very crude tools
الذين يستخدمون أدواةً بدائية
of about 44 million people.
يقدر بحوالي 44 مليون شخص.
are in the informal sector.
في قطاع غير رسمي.
at the top left over there
for the marketplace
Wachira up with a bank,
to train people from this sector
to buy the machine for themselves.
لشراء الآلة لأنفسهم.
where they can carry their material,
حيث يتمكنون من إحضار أدواتهم،
that have been made really, really fast
التي تم صنعها، بسرعة فائقة
for example, out of metal,
إذا كان أحدهم يصنع بوابة من المعدن،
they might make 10 in a day.
يمكنهم أن يصنعوا عشرة بيوم واحد.
of our population
amount, quite significantly,
بقدر كبير بشكل رائع،
so this is really very exciting.
لذا الأمر مشوق جداً.
about a problem that she explained.
بخصوص مشكلة قد ذكرتْها.
every month by young girls
على الفتيات الصغيرات
to buy a sanitary towel.
packaged these in bundles of seven to 10,
is unhygienic at the retail level,
لمستوى بيع التجزئة،
of them is too expensive.
which is brilliant, and simple.
كانت عبقرية وبسيطة.
can break down the bundles
these sanitary towels
in a public space, in a school, and so on.
أو في المدرسة، وغيرها.
and it worked really very well,
والتي نجحت بشكل كبير،
get the bugs out and so on.
على حل المشاكل وغيرها
is that the piloting process is possible.
to be able to help her to do this,
في المكان هنا ليساعدوها على القيام بهذا،
with a business accelerator,
مع برنامج لدعم الشركات الناشئة،
that was done at University of Nairobi
a solar cell into a roof tile
في بلاط السقف
who is an architect,
التي كانت مهندسة معمارية،
who is doing development and say,
يقوم بالتحسينات وقالوا له،
of just the roof tile without the solar."
بدون خلية الطاقة الشمسية."
using the internet of things over time,
شبكة اتصال الأجهزة المادية مع مرور الوقت،
of the utility charges for the electricity
back to the grid.
إلى شبكة الكهرباء.
quite a few installments.
على دفع أقساط قليلة جداً.
to show this to somebody kind of famous,
على عرض الأمر على شخص مشهور نوعاً ما،
actually presented the same idea,
قدم فعلاً نفس الفكرة،
if it was after us, so --
هي كانت بعدنا، لذا...
of course being able to prototype
بالطبع القدرة على صناعة نموذج تجريبي
in this kind of a setting
for the industrialization process,
of a lot of new ways of doing things:
من الطرق الحديثة للقيام بأشياء:
circular production.
for not just industrializing
ليس فقط التصنيع
that the environment is taken care of.
around who we were as Africans,
في المكان حول ما نكون كأفارقة،
and ethnicity and corruption and so on.
والأصل العرقي والفساد وهكذا.
adding value to people
بتوفير قيمة إضافية للناس
to things or materials
للأشياء أو الموارد
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