Jua Kali Open Source Machinery

Description

Rob Goodier:

"Ask for a pair of door hinges at a hardware store in Kenya and the shopkeep might offer two options: regular and “Jua kali” hinges. The jua kali pair could cost half the price, but they will not be finished or cleaned, and they are likely made by a cheaper, cruder manufacturing process the forges each hinge in a unique size and shape.

Jua kali is a Kiswahili term that literally means “hot sun.” But in Kenya, which shares English and Kiswahili as official languages, jua kali has taken new life as an adopted word in the English language that denotes the entire informal sector of goods and services. With that brief etymology, we'd like to introduce the Web site www.juakali.info. The site houses information on nearly a dozen farm tools and other devices, many with open-source construction guides. And more renderings are on the way, Muckle says. The site draws on the jua kali tradition of cost-cutting innovation and do-it-yourself manufacturing.

“I chose to call the site juakali.info so that those from the East African area would know who it was intended to reach,” Barney Muckle, Jua Kali's founder, told E4C." (https://www.engineeringforchange.org/news/2012/11/07/build_your_own_open_source_machinery_with_plans_at_jua_kali.html)