One of the prevailing issues in climate change is that the locus of innovation – by locus I mean “money” – is in the global north, while the biggest impacts and urgency, and by extension, the best entrepreneurs, are in the global south.
Innovations take root and have an impact when they’re brought to market by authentic entrepreneurs: ie, those whose lived experiences give them empathy for their customers and deep insights into what will work in a particular market and what won’t. I thought of this when speaking recently to Precious Mafunga, 31, who received a commendation from the United Nations, sponsored by GBC International Bank, last month for a plan he is working on to create wind-powered mini-grids. Some of his supporters told him: “This program that you are working on will have a widespread impact,” he said. “So I applied for consideration.”
In his application, he emphasized some of the problems that come from a lack of electricity, like not being able to power infant incubators. Fewer than 12.4% of people in the country where he’s from, Malawi (population 21 million), have electricity. Mafunga, who is from a rural area, said that the leading cause of people not finishing elementary school was simply that they didn’t have light to read by. Studies bear this out: “energy poverty” is connected to lower levels of educational attainment and slower economic development. “There are so many challenges that are caused by lack of access to electricity,” he said.
Mini-grids have proven good solutions in the developing world. A typical climate friendlier design combines solar panels with diesel generators. But Malawi has a rainy season, when months can stretch with hardly any sun at all. Mafunga, whose fledgling company is called SolisBioEnergy, has a plan for a wind-powered mini-grid. He’s worked out a pretty good business model to the stage where it is ready to be tested.
One 150 kwp mini-grid costs $850,000 and can support 900 households. Mafunga estimates customers could pay $750 a year (including subsidies and aid for part of the total). “There are nurses and school teachers living in homes without electricity,” he said – an example of the kind of knowledge a local entrepreneur brings to a problem. Where someone from a developed country might assume that lack of electricity means a family is living in poverty, the real picture is more nuanced.
There are organizations well aware of the need to propel funding and connections from north to south. Mafunga took part in the Canadian Student Energy Fellowship, where he honed his idea. I met him through CrowdSolve, a Colorado-based online pre-accelerator that helps climate entrepreneurs from all around the globe get their companies ready to pitch. (Disclosure: I’m on the board of the Crowdsolve). With these imprimaturs from the global north, Mafunga hopes he will find a funder who will trust him with the money to test one mini-grid.
Mafunga, meanwhile, shows all the signs of an entrepreneur. He paid his own way through university with a business selling local eggs to students. “I have experienced the real definition of what poverty is,” he said. “What I want is to address the challenge. If I see improvement in the economic condition, I will be more than very much happy.”
His first call, when he heard about the commendation from the United Nations was to his mother. His father died when he was 6, so she brought him up alone. When she heard the news of the award, she said, “Precious, you keep making me proud.”
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