Congolese women's co-op invents traffic robot
In an area where women often face adversity, an engineer in the Democratic Republic of Congo has worked with her women's co-operative to invent a humanoid…
Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has a traffic problem. The solution, according to inventor Isaie Thérèse, is robots.
Two eight-foot-tall, solar-powered humanoid stands on a platform surrounding one of Kinshasa's messiest traffic circles, moving awkwardly with red and green-light arms to direct drivers while speaking to pedestrians. Built in cameras send video of violators to a central computer, where tickets can then be sent out to generate money for public roads.
The idea was fostered and enacted by Thérèse, founder of a women's technology cooperative that promotes female inventors, innovators and engineers in an area where women often face bias and even violence.
Thérèse covered the $15,000 cost herself, but said that she is looking to sell the idea around the world.
"Our robot is a humanoid," Thérèse explained in French in a video interview VoxAfrica TV. "It's a design quality that copies the style of a real policeman because our policemen really like sunglasses."
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