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In Africa, many homes do not have electricity but increasingly everyone has a cell phone. Prepaid cell phone minutes have become a defacto currency in many African countries. Africans are in many ways more acclimated with using privately issued digital currencies (such as M-PESA)...


Where do they charge their phones? Are portable hand-powered generators common, like wind-up radios?



video2text: They extend the light machine on bicycles with just enough circuitry to make it suitable as a charger.


Hooking up a bicycle dynamo to charge your phone is a popular african hack: http://www.ted.com/talks/william_kamkwamba_on_building_a_win...


An unreliable grid, car batteries can also store off-grid power, fancy people have generators




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