Blog – Page 25 – Next Einstein Forum

June 16, 2015

RWANDA: NEW EDUCATION STRATEGY PRIORITISES TECHNOLOGY

“The Government is designing a strategic plan that will make it possible for the education sector to adopt Information and Communication Technology as a primary enabler of access to education. The Minister for Education, Prof. Silas Lwakabamba, said Rwandans need to take bold steps including the acquisition of computers by teachers to avail digital content […]

June 16, 2015

Big Idea 2015: The Coming Micropayment Disruption

In this series of posts, Influencers and members predict the ideas and trends that will shape 2015. Read all the stories here and write your own (please include the hashtag #BigIdeas2015 in the body of your post). The innovation that will shape the coming year, I think, will be the consumer use of digital currencies, such as bitcoin and […]

June 16, 2015

Tesla’s $13,000 battery could keep your home online in a blackout

Elon Musk is a man who likes to make waves. Whether it’s privatizing space exploration or shaking up commuting with the Hyperloop high speed transport system, the billionaire technocrat aims big. Now his electric car company, Tesla, is planning to change the way people power their homes. In a tweet last month, Musk announced that Tesla would […]

June 16, 2015

When ‘good enough’ is not good enough

Apple’s product launches are covered with breathless enthusiasm usually reserved for royal weddings and vaccines for dreaded diseases. The recent launch of the iPhone6 featured an exciting new technology – ApplePay – which, if widely adopted, will allow Apple’s discerning customers to make electronic payments from their phones in situations where they would have used […]

June 16, 2015

Why does Kenya lead the world in mobile money?

PAYING for a taxi ride using your mobile phone is easier in Nairobi than it is in New York, thanks to Kenya’s world-leading mobile-money system, M-PESA. Launched in 2007 by Safaricom, the country’s largest mobile-network operator, it is now used by over 17m Kenyans, equivalent to more than two-thirds of the adult population; around 25% of […]

June 16, 2015

First Solar-Backed Off-Grid Innovator to Capitalize on Kenya Experience

Powerhive, Inc. today announced that its industry-leading portfolio of off-grid metering and control solutions has successfully completed over two years of field testing in Kenya, paving the way for its commercialization and scale-up. With financial and technical backing from First Solar, Inc. FSLR, -1.97% a leading global provider of photovoltaic (PV) solar energy solutions, Powerhive […]

June 15, 2015

Bringing Women’s Perspectives to Africa’s Engineering Solutions

In September 2014, at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City, I made a commitment on behalf of Ashesi to have gender balance in our new engineering program. Gender balance is rare in the world of engineering education, but we believe it’s necessary to aim for inclusion. More importantly, we believe in making sure that future […]

June 15, 2015

Far Out, Man: 13.1bn-Year-Old Galaxy Is Most Distant Yet Seen By Humans

Galaxy EGS-zs8-1 has moved 30bn light-years away from Earth since it was born: ‘We’re actually looking back through 95% of all time to see this galaxy’ A team of astronomers has measured a galaxy farther than any other ever seen by human beings, reporting this week that the ancient star system offers a glimpse of […]

June 15, 2015

Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Logs Sol 4000, Digs Spirit of St. Louis Crater

After investigating some flat, light and dark toned rocks around Spirit of St. Louis Crater in April, Opportunity chalked up another milestone achievement for the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) mission – the 4000th sol or Martian day of surface operations – then did what she does best. By month’s end, the robot field geologist was closing […]

June 15, 2015

Citizen Scientists Discover Five New Supernovas

More than 40,000 citizen stargazers have helped to classify over 2 million celestial objects and identify five never-before-seen supernovas, in a massive example of citizen science at work. An amateur astronomy project of cosmic proportions, established by scientists at the Australian National University, asked volunteers to look through images taken by the SkyMapper telescope and […]