Bamboo Bike Studio

You sir have just made my day!
This initiative is awesome beyond belief, I just sent them an email and hope I can get into the class at some point this summer.
PS: Craig Calfee also has a very similar project going on in Ghana and I wonder if they are at all related.

THE CAUSE

Self-Propulsion and Sustainable Entrepreneurship:
Bamboo Bicycles Bring Transportation, Jobs and Industry to Developing Countries
At the Bamboo Bike Studio, we don’t just build bikes— we’re an active social entrepreneurship LLC, contributing knowledge and finance to the advancement of sustainable entrepreneurship, development and self-propulsion, worldwide. In addition to offering a unique bike building experience, the Studio functions as a development area for sustainable product engineering and teaching practices.

As part of our working collaboration with the Columbia University Earth Institute-based Bamboo Bike Project and the Millennium Cities Initiative for development, we provide testing and prototype construction at no cost. Together with our partners, we aim to establish scalable bamboo bike factories in Millennium Cities, starting with Kumasi, Ghana, Kisumu, Kenya, and Quito, Ecuador. This initiative addresses two key international development goals: 1) Improved Access to Transportation, and 2) Sustainable Light-Industrial Development.

-Improving Transportation-
Humans can walk at a rate of about 2 miles an hour, and ride a bicycle 10 miles an hour— that equals a 27-fold increase in transportation reach each day, if you own a bike. In developing countries, where basic resources can often be a day’s walk away, bicycling can boost access to crucial needs and economic and social activities.

Currently, the most prevalent style of bicycle in African, Asian and Latin American developing communities is the “Roadster.” Designed in early 20th-century Britain, the Roadster was intended for weekend pleasure riding and is ill suited to the heavy loads and poor roads of the developing world. Further, the importation of these bikes from Asia nearly triples their price, rendering them unaffordable to the majority of our target communities, and the low quality steel used in frame construction is prone to buckling and bending under common loads.

Bamboo bicycle factories will provide a lower-cost, more durable, locally manufactured form of transport specifically designed for local terrain. The product built in these factories— reliable and cost-conscious bicycles— will improve access to commerce, education, food and water, and health care services

Seeding Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Light-Industry Development
Many developing countries currently lack the infrastructure to process raw materials into locally made, saleable goods. Establishing locally owned and operated bamboo bicycle factories will tap a growth-positive bicycle market, stimulate self-sustaining local business, and sow the seeds for further light-industry growth and entrepreneurship.

Creating jobs, stimulating enterprise, using local, renewable resources, and spawning interrelated businesses (lacing wheels, stamping drop-outs, machining bottom brackets, sewing seats), bamboo bike factories will teach fabrication, manufacture, assembly, and management skills; skills that are transferable to other local emerging industries. Embodying the principle goal of self-propelled, local development, these factories will provide real and long-term economic inputs while delivering an affordable, socially beneficial product back to their own communities.

Further Resources
For a more detailed analysis of the costs and benefits of initiating a bamboo bicycle industry in Kumasi, Ghana, please see the KPMG authored, Millennium Cities Initiative commissioned report: http://www.earth.columbia.edu/mci/sitefiles/file/kpmg-white-paper-final-final.pd...