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5.1       Askwar Hilonga is a chemical engineer who
was born in Tanzania and has been able to manufacture a product that is able to
clean contaminated water using nanotechnology and sand, the product is able to benefit
over 70% of the households in Tanzania (BBC, 2015). It was discussed in the
introduction that inventors of frugal products often study in other countries
before moving back to their birthplace and start solving local issues, this is
exactly what has happened in this case, Askwar studied in South Korea and due
to the illnesses his family had when he was growing up due to water-borne
diseases wanted to do something to help the people of Tanzania and was able to
produce the ‘Nanofilter’ that can also be calibrated to eliminate specific
contaminates that appear in different regions (BBC, 2015) A characteristic of frugal innovation
that was mentioned before includes the product being low cost, this is not the
case here with this product due to Nano technology being costly, unfortunately
sand alone is unable to remove dangerous chemicals like fluoride and heavy
metals so the use of Nano tech is vital, the current price is $130, however
there are hopes that due to the popularity the materials will be able to be
bought in bulk and this will vastly reduce the price. To combat the issues of
price there has been the introduction of water stations that offer water at a
very affordable price. Sustainability
as a whole isn’t just a focus on the environment but also in other areas such
as social sustainability and in this case study alone there has been a creation
of jobs in excess of 150, this means that local people are earning money while
helping to produce a product which also benefits locals, internships have also
been granted for future entrepreneurs. A perfect endorsement of what was
discussed previously was discussed by Askwar Hilonga (2014) who believes that
employment and wealth will be created if young Africans don’t travel abroad for
jobs but instead should make a difference to their local communities, in terms
of the environmental stand point of sustainability initially due to the technology
used to produce the filter, the assumption that the product wouldn’t be environmentally
friendly was made, however due to the high costs of production the filters are
reusable and promotes the practice of sustainable water management (Qu et al.,
2012). 5.2       Malady is a company that was founded 1986 in South Africa by
Hennie Botes, this case study is a perfect example of a company operating in
Africa that is not only frugal but also extremely sustainable. The company
creates housing for low-income families using eco-friendly locally sourced materials,
each of the moulds is able to be used up to 50 times meaning that not only
costs but resources are able to be saved. The construction of the houses is
also very simple and the skills to do so can be passed on to locals quickly
this in turn benefits the community and produces skilled entrepreneurs for the
area at the same time. As mentioned previously frugal tends to have qualities such as
cheap, easy to use and/or repair and are often made using recycled or local
materials (Douglas, 2013; Rao, 2013), in the case of Moladi the construction of
the houses moves away from the original brick builds and has created a cheaper
alternative by removing the old inefficiencies. This case perfectly illustrates
an example of frugal innovation and is also sustainable due to the reduced carbon footprint due to the reusable moulds
and also the construction of the house can be less than 24 hours. The people of
Africa suffer 6 key challenges when trying to implement a low-cost housing project
(Botes, 2018). – lack of sufficient funds- shortage of skilled labour- lack of resources- work flow control – time constraints – wastage.  Moladi is able to succeed
where other projects have failed due to solving each of these issues and also being
sustainable. The main difference of this from the previously discussed case is
the intent to expand internationally and in some cases will have to use reverse
innovation to change the product slightly to be successful in countries such as
Mexico and Nepal. 5.3       The next case study picked to discuss is the Upesi Project,
this case is slightly different as it is a scheme rather than a
company, the Upesi Project is supported by the Intermediate Technology
Development Group (ITDG) this group was established in 1995 with the sole
purpose of introducing more efficient cooking stoves to areas of Kenya. Since
then over 16,000 stoves have been installed and living and working conditions
have been significantly increased. This has been achieved by using both recycled
and local materials to produce stove liners that only require a small layer of
clay to aid insulation (Opole,1988) this technique is frugal due to improving
from the old solution comprising of metal drums that were expensive and not
recyclable to a biomass-fired stove. In Kenya, wood shortage is a big problem and
any innovation that reduces this is a benefit not only to society but also the
environment as less trees will be destroyed to be used for fuel, research
states that the project has been directly responsible for fuel savings of over
90 KG per month in each household using this stove. The increase in demand for
clay due to the production of the stoves has had a negative effect on the soils
and wetlands in Kenya, this shows the problems that occur when trying to
balance frugal innovations with trying to be environmentally and socially

To counteract this problem the conservation of
trees has been encouraging and the replenishment of trees has been introduced
with over 5000 seeds being planted, training has been offered to the locals in
the best way to conserve the soil, however a popular opinion moving forward is
that regular land surveys are carried out to ensure the environment isn’t
impacted too much during the production of the Upset (Gustafson, D,.

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