3 African entrepreneurs receive Micro-Grid Academy Award 2021

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3 African entrepreneurs receive Micro-Grid Academy Award 2021

Three Africans have emerged as winners of the Micro-Grid Academy Young Talent of the Year 2021 Award launched by the RES4Africa Foundation, with the support of Enel Green Power, and the European Investment Bank.

The awards announced at the African Youth-Led Summit on Climate Change and Renewable Energy were presented to three unique concepts: a cold storage facility to reduce post-harvest losses; a platform that designs and manufactures light electric tricycles; and a food vending car powered entirely by solar energy.

The Micro-Grid Academy Young Talent of the Year Award, now in its second year, is a program aimed at honoring young African talents who attempt to address important environmental and socioeconomic concerns that obstruct African countries’ full development.

This year’s program was sponsored and funded by Enel Green Power and the European Investment Bank as part of the capacity-building initiative Micro-Grid Academy, which is led by the RES4Africa Foundation.

With this award, the three organizations hope to inspire young African energy entrepreneurs to build solutions that increase energy access, increase the use of renewable energy sources, and speed Africa’s transition to renewable energy.

The RES4Africa Foundation (Renewable Energy Solutions for Africa) is a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting Africa in making a just energy transition. Its goal is to help create favorable conditions for increasing investments in renewable energy technology across Africa.

As a link between Europe and Africa, RES4Africa envisions a long-term reform of the continent’s energy networks to deliver dependable and inexpensive electricity to all African enterprises and society, enabling job creation and socio-economic advancement. For this edition of the award, each of the three winners has been given a monetary prize of 5000 euros to help develop their projects.

Here are the three recipients of the Micro-Grid Academy Award:

Adekoyejo Ifeoluwapo Kuye – Nigeria

Adekoyejo Ifeoluwapo Kuye is a 26-year-old Nigerian whose project aims to provide Sub-Saharan African farmers with reliable and sustainable cold storage facilities to completely eradicate post-harvest losses in the fruit and vegetable supply chains: His Enugu-based startup, Manamuz Electric LTD, is focusing on building a distributed cold chain logistics infrastructure powered by solar energy and create jobs.

Alex Makalliwa – Kenya

The second winner, Alex Makaliwa, is a 31 years old founder of a Nairobi-based start-up. He hopes to use inexpensive, sustainable mobility and electrical power as a stimulus for growth in the economy in remote off-grid regions.

His successful concept intends to improve the design and construction of light electric tricycles (Try.kes) with solar panels and a data management system onboard. With a battery capacity of 1.6kWh, it can carry a payload of 250 kilograms and travel 50-60 kilometers at a top speed of 25 kilometers per hour on a full charge.

Benson Kibiti – Kenya

Benson Kibiti is a 24-year-old who created the third project. Nairobi’s 100,000+ street food sellers depend on charcoal for cooking and lighting due to a lack of access to clean alternatives, causing considerable health and environmental harm.

The winner, in collaboration with the African startup Zuhura Solutions, developed and tested the Halisi Trolley, a novel 100 percent solar-powered food vending cart that hoped to revolutionize Kenya’s street food business by providing reliable, clean, and sustainable energy. The stored energy is turned to heat energy, which automatically heats the meal and maintains the temperature while also generating enough energy to charge phones and power LED lights.

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