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In Africa, mobile phone growth over the past 5 years has been astronomical. And phones
are now social and economic lifelines. However, 576million people currently do not have access
to electricity and 30% of those own at least one mobile phone. So how do they charge their
phones? Some of my friends, they come from the remote
areas. Now, if they have to charge their phones, they have to travel far -- some people are
walking a long distance, or even getting a taxi to take them to the market place to charge
the phone, which is costly. So somebody spending 70kSH (0.35USD) a day to make sure he can
communicate, he can be online, which is a problem.
SOLARIS aims to solve this problem -- It's a solar powered multiple mobile phone charger.
Entrepreneurs or kiosk owners would buy this to provide a charging service to their local
community -- allowing the village residence to keep their phones powered and the Solaris
owner to generate significant income. So what we do is design and manufacture solar
powered products for un-electrified regions in Africa and specifically for the off-grid
phone charging market. The approach we've taken differs from competitors because the
products actively encourage entrepreneurship and income generation and this creates a sustainable
and highly scalable business. So this is our flagship product, Solaris, and what you do
is plug this solar panel into the battery unit and we plug any phone into the universal
port and the phone is then charging. When I started I was charging even 10 phones
in a day, it was doing very well, people were coming in good numbers, I was doing the service
for them. In fact I was just charging 15kSh (0.18USD) per phone; they were just paying
15kSH (0.18USD) per each. Maybe for the duration I have been with, around maybe I may have
saved around 4000-4500kSh (50-55USD). It is a good business and a promising business,
and even the device itself, I think it has a long life span because I have not seen any
problem with it, even the solar [panel] is working very well, I don't see any problem
with it. For the week we have been with the machine,
we have managed to save the community. At least per day we are having at least 10 customers
who are coming to charge their [phone] batteries and we expect in due course, we have more
customers. Just like these ones, they've brought their phones, but themselves they've gone
to do their work. They come to collect their phone when the phone is fully charged - so
that's the benefit, that's the benefit to them. So instead of going to Baruba, it's
better to be here and wherever he is doing is work, the phone is being charged.
You see, that way, it works. Feedback from customers like Isaac, Scholarstica
and numerous others confirm the need for SOLARIS around rural Africa. The Eternum Energy team
is now focused on setting up a distribution network to introduce Solaris to its many potential
customers. This is no easy task in a vast region such as Sub Saharan Africa. The effort
required will be great, but the opportunity considerably greater.
When you get SOLARIS, problem solved.