I've moved!

Hello reader!

I am no longer blogging at this site but have moved to http://greenghanaian.wordpress.com where I cover challenges of environmental preservation in Ghana. I am also no longer a student at University of Maryland. I have graduated and am currently working as a consultant for environment and climate change in Accra, Ghana, West Africa. Feel free to browse through the site and read any of my older posts... and come visit me at my new blog!

Thanks!

New Year: New Look: New Focus

This blog, which began as a class project, has changed my life. I am very appreciative of the readers and comments (on and offline). Since the end of May I have not posted anything new due to the heavy load of work and school I have had in the past months but I have decided to continue with it as I begin the new year.

As a class project, the focus was on bringing technological news in Ghana (and Africa) to the outsider so they could witness progress and unique tech applications on the continent. There were guidelines and requirements that I had to stick to in order to pass the class (I got a B). Well, thank heavens the class is over. I will now be able to add my own flavor to the blog and the posts will tend to be more opinionated. I welcome comments and discussion... and refer others to read as well!!!

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! 


Afehyia pa!!

Drawing the Semester to a Close: Reflections

As the semester draws to a close, I realize that creating and maintaining this blog has been a huge learning experience for me. It has taught me much more about myself and exposed me to so much information than I realized existed. When I chose my blog topic, it was my intention to shed light on where Ghana is in its technological adaptations and also to demonstrate how Africans in general always find unique ways of using technology to suit their unique needs. I gathered news information from different web sources such which are listed on the lower right of this blog page. I also got a lot of feed from twitter. The more African and international news sources I followed, the more headlines I was able to gather to report which helped me keep my blog content in high quality (in my opinion). I have gained a new appreciation for twitter because of this.
This class has been a very good learning experience. I am very glad that I took it. I have learned so much about trending technologies, how technology is changing the face of journalism and how the rate of adoption of new technology is reshaping everything from education to health to politics to fashion.
My favorite post would have to be the two posts regarding the use of Facebook by Africans and by Ghanaians. I think I loved this post the most because it was a compilation of research that I did myself. The statistics that I presented referring specifically to Ghana were gathered by my friend and me through a survey that I created. It confirmed one of the most important points presented throughout my blog. Mobile technology has penetrated Africa beyond grid electricity and land-line internet.
My least favorite post was that on the use of cell phones in the US which was a homework assignment for class. This is probably because the articles we had to read in order to respond to the topic involved a lot of data that was hard for me to synthesize.
I am ending with e-waste because I feel this is a topic that was not touched on in class. As an environmental science and technology major that grew up in Africa, this is a huge concern for me. A lot of emphasis in this class has been placed on what’s new and upcoming but no one has considered the effects of so much technology and hardware being produced. The only way to keep adopting new technology is to trash old ones, hence the big e-waste problem. Its killing the environment and causing poisoning to a lot of women and children in the developing world.
Overall, this has been an awesome experience. I do believe I will be blogging in the future.

Recycling while bridging the global digital divide

In my previous post, I talked about electronic waste (e-waste) and how many developed countries are creating a new type of pollution in developing countries. This happens when old computers and other electronics are discarded or recycled but end up being shipped to landfills in developing countries instead of being handled in the regulated manner because it costs less to do so. Well, in this next story, we see how a company is making a difference in this trend.
Collecting and Recycling Ecologically (CARE): Computers for Developing Countries is a company based in the United Kingdom and operating in Ghana that takes redundant computers that British companies wish to discard and recycles them by donating them to schools and colleges in Ghana. This might sound like not such a big deal but here is where it makes a real difference. In the previous posting, the video showed how many of these discarded computers come as ‘donations’ and 50% of them don’t even work. This is what creates the waste because no one is going to repair these outdated computers so they get thrown away. And then the pollution gets out of hand when there is such an abundance of these that they are burned for their copper wire by scavengers and children releasing toxic fumes.
CARE removes this danger by assessing every computer that goes through their system. Computers and computer equipment is collected from businesses, schools and individuals for a small fee. All data on the equipment is then wiped clean to Ministry of Defense standards. It is after this that the computers are shipped to Ghana for distribution. They are taken to service centers that are responsible to installing new programs as well as training IT specialists to maintain the PC systems once installation is complete at the schools. After the donations, the students and teachers are also trained to use and maintain computers. Their program enables schools in Ghana and the UK learn from each other as they collaborate through the internet. They are working towards projects that will forge international projects and relationships.

But there is yet another component of this company that does even more to combat pollution in Ghana. There is an increasing plastic waste problem that exists in the country. Almost everything that is sold in Ghana is vended in plastic bags, including water. Water is sold on city streets in plastic packets instead of bottles. These plastic packets and black plastic bags used to hold everything have been accumulating on trash dumps and on the streets since they aren’t biodegradable. Currently, there is no national waste management system in the country. The bags also clog the drainage systems causing floods during the heavy rain season. For this reason, an ‘Eco-Code’ has been drafted by CARE to be signed by all students of schools that receive computers donations. This code requires them to put measures in place to curb this pollution.
I look forward to seeing how CARE will change the face of pollution and recycling in Africa and the e-waste menace.

Digital Dumping: the latest environmental crime

Ever wondered what happened to your old televisions, radios, computer monitors and systems when you threw them away and upgraded? I’m sure some of you might have donated them to charity, others might have ‘recycled’ them with electronic companies, and then some of you just threw them in the dumpster (admit it). Well, I have news for you. They all end up in the same place regardless of how you got rid of it.
It is becoming big business to ship outmoded electrical overseas to poorer countries instead of recycling them with environmentally safe methods. Some of these countries have no idea that they are getting ‘trash.’ They are told that they are ‘donations’ only to find out that half of them don’t even work. The non-functional goods are then dumped on sites that have turned into mountains. This sort of pollution would never be entertained in America. But America is causing it elsewhere. And as these heaps of e-waste grow, the poor begin to scavenge through the rubble is search of anything valuable. Boys and women, even children have created an occupation out of searching through e-waste trash heaps for valuable copper wire and other spare parts that could be sold for money. In order to be able to extract these wires and parts, they burn the plastics coverings of the monitors and tvs to expedite the process. The fumes emitted are toxic and are a slow poisoning to these ignorant victims of the irresponsibility shown by the developed world.
The video below, presented by Frontline on PBS, gives detailed coverage of the process, first visiting the Korle Lagoon in Ghana and then tracking a container of supposedly recycled e-waste all the way to Hong Kong. The Korle Lagoon was once a wetland that helped maintain the natural balance of the environment in and around Ghana’s capital, Accra. Now it has been named one of the most polluted water bodies in the world. Even the locals call it Sodom and Gomorrah: a dumping site for the trash that the West has conveniently forgotten about.



The fight against the dumping of e-waste is a global campaign that is finally beginning to attract the attention of the necessary decision-makers of developed countries. With all the conversation around the world about climate change and environmental preservation, hazards like this are no longer able to fly under the radar. I will bring more developments on the steps that NGO’s and governments are taking to clean up the mess that has been made.

E-WASTE: Re-Focusing of my blog

For the remainder of the semester we have been asked to refocus our blogs on one particular topic. Something that we believe has not been covered in class or something we would like to talk about that has to do with technology. I have decided that I will focus the remainder of my blogging on E-waste. This is a term given to the remains of electronics such as old televisions, radios and computers. At the moment, there exists no legislation in the United States to regulate how these items are discarded of. The EPA has made rules of its own that keep the US in check. But what about the rest of the world? I will focus my upcoming posts uncovering the situation not really here in the US but worldwide.

Photography in Ghana: rising to great heights

There are two Ghanaian photographers in Ghana that are breaking grounds in photography. They are Sefa Nkansah and Emmanuel Bobbie who goes by the name ‘Bob Pixel.’ These men have given a new twist to African photography and have a following that increases daily. It’s awesome to see the perspectives they put on life and watching their slideshows has become a habit of mine.
Here, a familiar image is given a new look. It’s common to see African women with babies strapped on their backs. But not all of them ride bicycles.

That right there is a woman on the move. She had a place to go and was determined to get there. I’m sure the baby enjoyed the ride too. She could have been on the bike all day running errands and decided to take a rest. Here, the photographer got his chance to capture the moment.
As kids, boys made toy cars with tin cans, rubber bands, twigs and other things. And sometimes, it was just a car tire and two sticks. Those were always the easiest and you could run fast with them.

Sefa Nkansah’s capture of this simple toy from a rooftop just blows my mind. Anyone who saw this picture commented that they would have never thought to take this from a rooftop. The color and the street and the shadow just makes you want to get a tire yourself and start running. It’s pretty brilliant.
But the most brilliant picture, in my opinion, happens to be this one here.

I’m the type of person that can sleep practically anywhere but I don’t think I’d manage this. He seems so comfortable taking his nap after a hard day’s work. The picture communicates so much. The lighting (or lack thereof), the position, the clarity and then the fact that it’s in black and white gives it a real professional touch. One of Bob Pixel’s best.
Good job guys on all of these photos.

And to add a footnote: these men are friends. They would, in normal circumstances, be rivals competing against each other but they rather comment and criticize each other's work positively and that is commendable of both of them.