The new India - Africa partnership

There is a new renaissance in bilateral partnerships between emerging markets. India just organized a summit for African leaders to discuss trade partnerships that would benefit both markets. India is trying to mimic and duplicate China's success in Africa. For instance, China organized a similar summit in 2006.

India and Africa are closely more related because of colonial ties to the crown. Also, culturally, India is much more similar to Africa then China. Even the Brazilians, have signed trade deals for energy, biofuel and agriculture.

The BBC has written more about this summit.

BBC - See-saw to power African schools

The proposed see-saw could light a classroom after five minutes

BBC has an article on using human -power to power African schools.

A young inventor is hoping to tap the unbounded energy of children in a playground to power schools in Africa.

Design student Daniel Sheridan has created a simple see-saw which generates enough electricity to light a classroom.

The device works by transferring the power, created by a child moving up and down on it, to an electricity storage unit via an underground cable.

The Coventry University student has won £5,500 in funding to develop the idea.

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Rwanda opens stock exchange

Courtesy BBC

The BBC has reported that Rwanda has open up it's own stock exchange. Initially the exchange will deal with corporate and government debt, over time it expects to list shares to the world market.

This is a big development in a country where 15 years ago it was in a devastating shape. Rwanda's economy has done a 360 degree paradigm shift and has embraced investors and foreigners all over the world.

Read article here

100 dollar laptop production begins

By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

Five years after the concept was first proposed, the so-called $100 laptop is poised to go into mass production.

Hardware suppliers have been given the green light to ramp-up production of all of the components needed to build millions of the low-cost machines.

Previously, the organisation behind the scheme said that it required orders for 3m laptops to make production viable.

The first machines should be ready to put into the hands of children in developing countries in October 2007.

"There's still some software to write, but this is a big step for us," Walter Bender, head of software development at One Laptop per Child (OLPC), told the BBC News website.

The organisation has not said which countries have bought the first machines.

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