Naledi 3D Factory and Kellogg Foundation apply VR
to the training of Zimbabwe’s bee-keepers
April 2004

"VR in Africa for Africa by Africa…

The Naledi3d Factory, sponsored by the Kellogg Foundation and supported by WorldLinks Southern Africa, have embarked on their latest African community development project – on the subject of Beekeeping in Zimbabwe.

This pilot project aims to test the ability of VR in the transfer of farming skills to emergent farmers in Zimbabwe. The system will ultimately be used to educate prospective beekeepers in Zimbabwe in the basics and best practices in relation to beekeeping. Beekeeping, along with other cash crops such as Paprika and tomato’s have been identified as examples of crops that are relatively easy to cultivate and have a ready market, thus generating a reasonable income for the farmer.

We envisage that the system will be structured along the following lines:

  1. Starting up and managing the swarm - selecting a hive, attracting the bees, bee house, location of the hive, water, flora and conservation, enemies, temperature control, first aid.;
  2. Protective clothing and equipment - protective suit, hive tool, a bee brush, scraper, smoker, hives (building them and types of hives);
  3. Harvesting the honey;
  • Selling the honey - understanding the marketing of honey in Zimbabwe, storage;
  • In addition there will be a section called “Digging Deeper” – which will provide more in depth knowledge of related topics (especially documents etc) for those who wish to dig deeper.

The development of the program will fall to the Naledi3d Factory, while the evaluation (and later, distribution) will fall to WorldLinks Southern Africa.

This project will be the 4th African community development project that Naledi3d Factory has undertaken. Others include basic hygiene in Uganda as well as HIV / AIDS in Ethiopia, as well as employment awareness for the Youth of Alexandra, near Johannesburg.

We aim to expand this important initiative to other aspects of agricultural production in Zimbabwe, as well as other countries - as the right partners and sponsors are found.

For more information, please contact Dave Lockwood at the Naledi3d Factory