Construction Technology

Solution Thinking  moladi Solution Thinking The status quo is not working for billions of poor or vulnerable people around the world. The world today is grappling with enormous social, economic, and environmental challenges. Organizations across sectors - public, non-profit, multilateral, and private - are working to address issues ranging from poverty and malnutrition to social inequality and climate change. Yet social problems remain on a massive scale, particularly for the four billion around the world with incomes well below the Western poverty line.   The challenges facing poor or vulnerable populations require innovative, sustainable, and large-scale solutions.   Companies create shared value in three ways: By reconceiving products and markets, or improving access to products and services that meet pressing societal needs and thereby create new market and revenue opportunities By enhancing productivity in the value chain, or improving company operations to enhance quali...

Rural Development - The need for Rural Developers One of the biggest and most crucial issue facing the African Continent is that of urbanisation. Daily people leave their rural villages lured by the prospects of a better life in the city. Yet, this does not happen and more and more cities and city dwellers are struggling under the pressures of "City Living". "Work" to provide "Food" and "Shelter" - this is the basis of survival. If there is no "work" "crime" is one of the next options. Urbanization in Africa - Rural to Urban Africa is a rapidly urbanising continent, which according to the UN Habitat, is increasing at a rate of 230,000 people who are moving into cities across Africa each week. Currently, sub-Saharan Africa alone has an estimated housing deficit of 30 million units and every year, the backlog of houses across Africa’s 54 countries collectively increases by 4 million houses. With the population of the African con...

Embodied Energy in Construction Material-moladi   Embodied Energy in Construction Materials Embodied Energy Embodied Energy is the sum of all the energy required to produce any goods or services, considered as if that energy was incorporated or 'embodied' in the product itself. The concept can be useful in determining the effectiveness of energy-producing or energy-saving devices, or the "real" replacement cost of a building, and, because energy-inputs usually entail greenhouse gas emissions, in deciding whether a product contributes to or mitigates global warming. One fundamental question is: does the device produce more energy or save more energy than it took to make it? Embodied energy is an accounting method which aims to find the sum total of the energy necessary for an entire product life-cycle. Determining what constitutes this life-cycle includes assessing the relevance and extent of energy into raw material extraction, transport, manufacture, assembly, ins...