Kopernik

Message from Toshi Nakamura, CEO and Co-Founder of Kopernik about the Japan earthquake and tsunami

I was in Tokyo when the earthquake hit. Even though Tokyo is quite far from the epicentre, as I was walking from one meeting to another in the city, I felt it so strong.  It was scary.  I would soon realize just how devastating the earthquake's impact would be for the north of my country. 

I was reminded of the Kobe earthquake in 1995 in which many of my friends and their families were affected.  I was also reminded of the Aceh/North Sumatra earthquake and tsunami in 2004 where I worked on the recovery efforts with the United Nations.  The devastated landscape in the north of Japan bears so much resemblance to what I saw in North Sumatra.

I never thought that Kopernik would be sending technology to Japan but I was contacted by so many people, including those in the affected areas via email, facebook and twitter.  They said our technology was needed there now.   Together with the Japan team, we started to identify the most needed technology, and partnered with an organisation that can deliver them to the tsunami victims, and thus our first Japan project was born.

Within 30 hours, the project was fully funded, and 600 d.light solar lamps are now already in Japan.  Thanks to all of you who donated.  As the government is scaling up its response capacity, we are now collecting donations to send an additional 1,000 lamps this week.  You can donate here
 
Thank you.
 
Photo credit: Kyodo/Reuters

Ewa Wojkowska, Co-Founder of Kopernik named one of Advance Australia's leading 50 women

Ewa Wojkowska, Co-Founder of Kopernik, has recently been named as one of Australia’s 50 leading women by Advance.
 
The Advance leading 50 represent both established leaders of today and women who are on the road to achieving success in the future.  Collectively Advance believe this group is set to influence the agenda for innovation, sustainability and global partnerships, and a great asset for Australia.
 
Ewa has been recognised for her work with Kopernik, which since its launch just over a year ago, has already reached more than 20,000 people by bringing life-changing technologies to communities in the last mile.
 
The photo above is of the leading 50 with the Australian Governor General at her residence in Sydney.  For more information please click here.

Kopernik caught on film

We're excited to announce two short films capturing the work of Kopernik in Oecusse, Timor-Leste and in Central Java, Indonesia. 
 
Click here to watch the Timor-Leste film and see our projects in action. 
 
Click here to watch the film featuring the biomass cookstoves in Central Java. 
 
Kopernik is grateful to Nadia Woodhouse and David Ee for producing these films.

Tech gets high rating from the community

Two more tech-seeker reports have been submitted in the last month providing useful feedback and insight into the adoption of various life-changing technology and the impact it is having.
 
Relieve the burden of carrying water for the women of Timor-Leste:
 
Thirty households now have Q-Drums - rollable water containers - and 167 people in those households have benefitted from this technology, including 100 children. According to the interviews and surveys the technology has been very effective for the people who use it. The new owners of the Q-Drums say they use the technology everyday and one woman said that she could now transport enough water in the Q-Drum to last her family for two or three days.
 
Here's what a few of the other proud new owners of the Q-Drum in Oecusse had to say:
 
“I like the Q-Drum because it doesn’t hurt my body so much.”
 
“I like the Q-Drum because it reduces the household workload, it’s very good.”
 
“I like the Q-Drum because it just rolls, and I can roll it by myself.”

Please click here for the full report and additional information.

Clean and reliable light for indigenous communities

In isolated areas of Papua Province, Indonesia, indigenous communities lack access to reliable sources of electricity for household lighting purposes. As a result, communities must rely on traditional means of lighting their homes such as wood fires. 
 
300 indigenous households in Papua, Indonesia received the Firefly solar lamps that also charge mobile phones. Some of the households were from isolated mountainous areas and some from small islands off the coast of Papua Province.  In total around 1,000 people benefited from this project. Initial feedback from the community has been extremely positive and the solar light has enabled families to save money, previously spent on kerosene and candles.
 
Here's what we heard back from the community:
 
"We used to sell our garden food in order to buy kerosene and candles, but this did not bring regular income, and often we had to stay in the darkness. Many years we stayed in the darkness but the light has now come."
 
"In order to charge mobile phones, we used to go to Wamena town by taxi and pay for charging mobile phones. Each trip was expensive but now we don’t have to spend money again for charging mobile phones."
 
Please click here for the full report and additional information.