Billions of people in the developing world do not have access to reliable electricity; these people are often forced to turn to polluting, hazardous, non-renewable and expensive solutions like kerosene and diesel.
Neha Juneja, a co-founder of Mumbai-based Greenway Grameen Infra, shares with Kopernik the story behind the Greenway Smart Stove:
Lack of appropriate products exacerbates poverty; this was the central theme behind setting up Greenway Grameen Infra – a design shop for base of pyramid consumers.
For a company that has only been in existence for a little over a year, Nazava is already showing an outstanding record. It has sold a total of 20,000 ceramic water filters and has introduced 12 different product lines to give consumers a variety of options. It also operates 6 different store locations throughout Indonesia, where consumers can directly purchase water filters, and offers a delivery service to families who don’t live near stores.
At the same time when Indonesia faced an energy crisis due to the soaring price of gas and increasing scarcity of kerosene, a lecturer at Brawijaya University of Malang in East Java pondered his substantial, meaningful contributions to society. To turn his musings to reality, Dr. Muhammad Nurhuda, with background in theoretical physics, delved into renewable energy research in 2008 in the form of clean cooking stoves, using waste-based fuel and for usage in underprivileged communities in Indonesia.
One and a half billion people—a quarter of humanity—do not have access to electricity or proper lighting. Many rely on fuel-based lighting, including kerosene, animal waste, wood and other carbon-based fuel, all of which can be tremendously polluting, exposing users to toxic fumes and gasses. And, many of these more traditional forms of lighting pose grave immediate dangers. Every year, millions people are severely burned or killed by such lamps, while property is lost and poverty becomes even more entrenched when the precarious lighting causes fires.
Transportation of water is one of the most arduous—and often dangerous—tasks in the developing world. And now a simple solution, which may prove as significant as the invention of the wheel, is changing the way people in developing countries transport up to 50 liters (more than 13 gallons) of water for cooking, cleaning and drinking.
At night in Rwanda, kerosene lamps flicker and burn across the verdant landscape. By this light, families cook their evening meals, business continues apace and students crack into their books. But those living in close quarters to a burning kerosene lamp inhale an amount of smoke estimated to be equivalent to forty cigarettes per day.
Solantern is a company that knows a good idea when they see it. And when founder Joseph Nganga realized that solar battery and LED technology was mature enough to replace the costly and expensive kerosene lantern, he set out to use his experience in identifying quality lanterns, together with his knowledge of marketing and distribution, to address one of the most trenchant problems in the developing world—access to clean, affordable light.
Access to clean drinking water is a major crisis facing developing countries. There are 1.2 billion people worldwide living without safe drinking water and 1.6 million diarrheal deaths every year caused by water-borne diseases. The majority of these are among children under five years of age.
There are an estimated 600 million people worldwide with a hearing impediment. Add the challenge of poverty, coupled with the circumstances of single parenthood, and you have the makings of what entrepreneur Howard Weinstein describes as “without a doubt and there is no close second the toughest job in the world. A single mom with a disability in a developing country is my hero.”
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