An amazing journey into the heart of Africa - the birthplace of humanity, of tools and technology, of all art and music - in fact of everything that makes us human.
This 13 part series celebrates the successes of Africa’s technological developments as well as taking a deeper look at the paradox of progress, and the hard thinking that is now needed.
Filmed across the continent of Africa, we meet the people on this leading edge of change, who are confronting humanity’s most pressing problems with a spirit of enterprise and unstoppable enthusiasm.
African Solutions shows that ancient wisdom and modern knowledge can join forces in a genuinely innovative way to create a bright and sustainable future.
Episode List
Episode 1: Intro
We meet some of the people from Africa who are working to bring together old and new technologies to solve the huge problems confronting this continent and the world at large.
Episode 2: The Nature of Africa
We meet the developers and users of a unique information technology - ‘Cybertracker’, which can be used by scientists and indigenous people alike to capture vital data as they skilfully detect the presence of often elusive animals. We see how DNA profiling technology is being used to ensure a strong future for one of the world’s most admired creatures, the African lion.
Episode 3: Big Brother Never Sleeps
In this episode, we see how African technology is being used as a watchdog, to combat the increasing problem of theft and hijacking of cars. Information is an ingredient in the chemistry of power and we see how some of the most disadvantaged people in Africa are using hi-tech resources to bring their predicament to the notice of the world at large.
Episode 4: Something from Nothing
In this episode, we witness the virtual industry that has sprung up all across southern Africa, creating decorative and functional objects from scrap wire and metal. We celebrate the ingenuity and vision of a school community solving the problem of providing power for information technology where there is no electricity supply to tap into.
Episode 5: The Changing Face of Africa
We take a journey right across Africa, awash with the sights and sounds of ritual and celebration in dance and music. We see how people’s long-standing quest for visual elegance extends from the creation of ancient rock carvings to the transformation of personal appearance through modern hairstyle design, assisted in the ‘Cybercut’ system by the latest computer technology.
Episode 6: Elegant Solutions
In this episode, we see one of the earliest examples of the ingenuity of hungry humans in turning old bones lying around into a means of obtaining food. Even today, the same thinking has fishermen on Lake Malawi solving the problem of preserving their precious catches, turning previously useless palm nuts into a productive resource for smoking the fish. In a different twist of lateral thinking, we see how, in a single stroke, the so-called ‘Madiba barrow’ solves the twin problems of transporting and heating water for African township communities.
Episode 7: Keeping Track: Investigating with Technology
We see how investigating crime can mean following tenuous leads, often to dead ends. But in some cases, the refusal to give up can prompt detectives to discover new technological means of obtaining vital evidence. And although you might think it easy to keep track of a herd of elephants, special radio tracking technology has been needed to establish the movement patterns of African elephants in Kruger National Park before trying to relocate them, in a bold initiative to establish conservation ‘Peace Parks’ across national borders. In this groundbreaking project, much larger areas are being opened to wildlife.
Episode 8: Making Africa Safe
In this episode, we see the kind of technological attempt to respond to years of widespread insurgency warfare in the South African ‘Rooivalk’ helicopter gunship. Security fencing is a growth industry in societies where political and economic tensions continue to prevail - we visit one manufacturer of African ‘razor wire’, whose top of the line product is labelled the ‘Ripper’. We see how solutions are being developed to problems of industrial safety in that most dangerous of human endeavours, mining.
Episode 9: Serious Fun
we visit the rally racetrack where the competitive spirit finds itself fuelling more than just the people - it’s embedded in the finely tuned machines they drive. But in more sedate sports, we see way that advanced electronics meets one of the most traditional games in the world - cricket.
Episode 10: Single Complexity
Who would have thought that a scientist patiently studying the behaviour of a huge variety of African insects could provide the key to solving the murders of a number of unfortunate victims of a serial killer? Elsewhere, teams of enterprising Africans have come up with ways of providing sustenance, not only as food, but an income and a cause for celebration. Africa is not alone in having to find solutions to the imbalances between man and nature. In African game parks, a simple solution to the problems of tick infestation of the animals has been developed.
Episode 11: Compassionate Africa
In this episode, we meet the unsung heroes who made a historic response to one of the worst oil spills to hit local wildlife in African waters, with volunteer rescue teams swinging into action within hours. We see a typical ‘township’ in Africa struggling with problems caused by overcrowding, with people beginning to implement solutions to the problems of sanitation and water supply with appropriate technology. And in rural Kenya, where Western hi-tech veterinary products are neither available nor appropriate, we meet the Sunburu people, who are rediscovering their traditional solutions to the problems of protecting their flocks from deadly tick-borne diseases.”
Episode 12: Ingenious Africa - Finding the Way Ahead
In this episode, see how ordinary people in Malawi are working together to halt the deforestation that threatens to lay their landscape bare. When all is said and done, nature has the ultimate power and we visit an Eskom facility in southern Africa monitoring one of nature’s awesome, and sometimes hair-raising, spectacles - lightning bolts. We visit a project which is seeking to give back to nature some of the things that people have previously taken away - a unique African animal, the Quagga, thought to be long extinct, is being brought back from the dead.
Episode 13: The Dark Continent Lights the Way
In the final episode in the series, we look across the wide range of African accomplishments and envisage the future they may foretell. The picture is not guaranteed to be rosy, but there are rays of hope for us all in the stories of African people making something from nothing, seeing opportunity in the face of despair and reaching deep into their roots of traditional wisdom to meet the challenges of modern times.