Innovation in Botswana: The Botswana Technology Centre

A solar powered hearing aid, a method for bonding sand from the Kgalagadi desert to make construction blocks, a photovoltaic charge controller, a Masa lamp - these are a few innovations to have emerged from the Botswana Technology Centre (BOTEC) in Gaborone.

An early BOTEC initiative led to successful innovation in the field of solar-powered products for deaf people. Some 167 million people in developing countries suffer from deafness, or disabling hearing impairment¹,which limits their opportunities for education and employment. Low cost hearing aids, while available, are not designed for conditions in impoverished communities, where batteries are scarce and costly. To address this problem, BOTEC set up a collaborative project in 1992 with Motse Wa Badiri Camphill, a charitable NGO offering training, employment and rehabilitation services to people with disabilities in Botswana. The aim was to design, manufacture and distribute a low cost hearing device powered purely by the sun's energy. BOTEC produced an initial prototype for a body-worn, solar-powered hearing aid. The Motse Wa Badiri Camphill team conducted field-tests, raised funds for design improvements, branded the device with the SolarAid name, and took it to market. The hearing aid won the Design for Development Award from the South African Bureau of Standards in 1998; and went on to win international recognition at the 2002 World Awards for Sustainable Energy in Austria.

The body-worn, solar rechargeable hearing aid generated considerable interest and was used in many developing countries. Yet the level of sales was not high enough to make it sustainable. So Motse Wa Badiri Camphill set up a separate organization, the Godisa² Technologies Trust, in order to focus the expertise necessary to develop the promising pilot project into a genuinely successful product. Drawing on the previous experience, a Godisa team of young product designers and technicians developed a stand-alone, solar-powered battery recharger for behind-the-ear hearing aids. The recharger, now being successfully marketed under the SolarAid brand, requires only 6 to 8 hours of sunlight to maintain a full charge for a week. It was awarded a WIPO prize at Botswana's 2005 National Design for Development Awards, which were hosted by BOTEC.

Sustainable solution

In line with broader government strategy...