By Charlotte Webster*
A simple but effective solar kit is helping to bring light to homes in the less-industrialised world without the choking side-effects of kerosene lamps.
About 14 per cent of Kenya is electrified, Tanzania even less at 11 and Malawi a pitiful seven. These statistics correspond directly to poverty and development.
The extensive off-grid rural areas [...]

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By Katherine Nightingale
Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) will release 13,500 malaria drug candidates into the public domain as part of its ‘open innovation’ agenda, it has announced.
Chief executive Andrew Witty outlined the company’s strategy for increasing its intellectual property flexibility and altering its business model to tackle neglected tropical diseases.
“We’re trying to identify a more [...]

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Imagine if lights went out in the middle of a match between Brazil’s Samba Boys and South Africa’s Bafana Bafana during quarters at the FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa? What would follow - riots, probably.
For ardent soccer fans, take heart, Philips Lighting is coming to the rescue, courtesy of the sun, with a [...]

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The Schwab Foundation has recognized three new social entrepreneurs with significant impact in Africa as winners of the Africa Regional Social Entrepreneurs Award for 2009.
David Kuria of Ecotact (Kenya), Patrick Schofield of Streetwires Artists Collective (South Africa) and Mitchell Besser and Gene Falk of mothers2mothers (Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland and Zambia) were [...]

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By Dalindyebo Shabalala*
Developing countries will need ‘clean technologies’, such as micro-wind energy, if they are to play an active role in combating climate change over the coming decades.
The question is how to access these? The answer lies in genuine cooperative technology transfer between the developed and developing world.
Compulsory licensing, where governments allow manufacturers [...]

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