The entire experience of bringing the Big Boda to Kenya is detailed in this final report. It covers everything from starting out in Kisumu to gauging the project's end result and lays out plans for improvments to the Big Boda and future projects. This is an excellent summary of the Big Boda Trial Market and a good read for anyone considering similar technology-import projects to areas like Kenya.

An upcoming Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum exhibition will feature the Big Boda and the Worldbike as technologies that can improve the lives of customers in the Developing World. The exhibit opens in New York on May 5th, and will be up until the end of September. It will then tour, possibly reaching California and London.

We've started using Google Sketchup to share designs of our Worldbike technologies. For the first example of this please check out the Big Boda plans. Sketchup was aquired by Google in the Spring of '06 and released a free version shortly thereafter. When compared to other 3d packages, it is much easier to learn. However, it's not quite as 'engineering-ready' as other software packages like Solidworks.

I got a call from a woman associated with a nonprofit dedicated to saving wild dogs in Kenya. She wanted to purchase two Big Bodas for use in tracking dogs in the field. But she insisted that the Big Bodas be motorized. I asked her why she wanted motorized bikes. She said the trackers have to cover long distances.

The conversation went like this.

Here are some highlights of Ed's recent trip to Kenya:

*Brought one prototype long bike for donation to our sponsored
orphanage, the Young Generation Center

*Found the Worldbike shop was still operational, with 3 of the
original 5 employees still there.

*Many Big Bodas still on the road, including our Boda Boda customer
David, who had appeared on the front page of the local paper with his
Big Boda.

*Ed coached the Worldbike team to make two long bikes at the shop. The

We received another email today from a woman who does work with a Kenyan NGO called HSHC doing HIV/AIDS work in Nairobi. Unfortunately, we are not in a position to donate bicycles to HSHC right now, but perhaps one of our supporters would like to make this happen.

Please take a look at her email and consider sponsoring the purchase of bicycles for their NGO. If you'd like to sponsor them, please contact me and I will make arrangements for bicycles to be delivered to HSHC through our shop in Kisumu.

Dear Worldbike,