The killer product in Africa would be a 50$ solar powered smartphone I was in Madagascar and people there are walking huge distances just to go into a small shop where they can charge their phones.
When I drove into Poznan, Poland about 25 years ago and the first texaco station had just opened it looked really strange, a piece of high tech colour in the middle of a gray and drab city. A sign of things to come. This picture gives me a similar feeling.
We already have a lot of those in nigeria and also in other african countries. These charging shops are a necessary convenience and they provide jobs for the youths.
It is. And they don't even have to buy it for each home, as it's pretty pretty expensive for an average African, but at least for say one village. Certainly much better than travelling even longer distances. Africans will improve this one step at a time.
it will NEVER be efficient to integrate these two technologies. A phone is something you carry in your pocket, a solar cell is something you leave out in the sun all day.
But what if somebody invented some kind of flexible and detachable tubular device, perhaps housed in a durable rubber, that contained some type of metal filament that was capable of transmitting electrical signals from A to B?
In sunhsine-blessed countries, one does not have a pocket, and indeed I would be happy of my iPad-New if it were light, thin, and would recharge itself while I used it for shade ..
Depends what you mean "having electricity". Here's 3 cases: (a) Have electricity at home (b) No electricity at home, but have access to charge a phone at a shop/workplace/friend/neighbour (c) None of the above.
That's exactly my point. Efficient solar cells being mass produced cheaply will be world changing, but no one is going to try sticking one on a phone unless they're a little dim. You have a solar cell at your home/town center that you recharge at.
I am too lazy too look but I remember reading a story where an $80 or so solar panel system (with some sort of battery, no doubt) from China enabled villagers in Africa to turn a light on at night and maybe recharge a phone. Simple but life changing.
When you have very few things, people get creative. In USA for example for the most part mechanics change a car part with a new one, in the third world they open it up, fix and get another decade out of it.
