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  • TECHNOLOGY FEATURE

African scientists leverage open hardware

A growing emphasis on do-it-yourself science is helping researchers to equip labs in resource-limited areas.
By
  1. Abdullahi Tsanni

    1. Abdullahi Tsanni is a science writer based in Abuja, Nigeria.

Elikplim Ampofo, Mary Twumasi and Victor Kumbo pose for a photo holding a square piece of wood branded with the word 'Actifield'

Researchers Elikplim Ampofo, Mary Twumasi and Victor Kumbol attended the 2018 TReND in Africa Open Labware workshop in Cape Town, South Africa. Credit: Agnieszka Pokrywka

A 2018 article in the journal HardwareX details “an open source hardware setup to measure locomotor activity in rodents”. It has a simple design. But for developer Victor Kumbol, then a neuroscience master’s student at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana, that device, called Actifield, has had an outsized impact.

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Nature 582, 138 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01606-z

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