Over 1 Million People Helped By WakaWaka Via Off-Grid Solar Power & Lighting (Exclusive Interview)
One of the people I was most honored to meet during my cleantech tour of the Netherlands was Maurits Groen, cofounder and CEO of WakaWaka. WakaWaka, in just a few short years in existence, has had a tremendous impact on over 1 million people across the world, bringing them electricity and light via small-scale solar power systems.
Interestingly, the idea for the company stemmed from a trip to South Africa for the 2010 World Cup, where Maurits and cofounder Camille van Gestel were struck by the lack of electricity access and safe lighting in the region.
Our interview with Maurits covered these initial WakaWaka seeds, how the company was initially funded (hint: crowdfunding/crowdinvesting), and some of the great impacts the company had had at the time of our interview.
As I’ve heard many times from people involved with off-grid solar and solar microgrids in developing countries, one of touching and critical areas of life where solar-powered lighting can have a huge impact is with the birthing process. People in places without electricity typically use kerosene lighting to help deliver babies, which isn’t very safe. Maurits mentioned just one community in the Philippines that WakaWaka had helped that had used their products to deliver nearly 1,000 babies. Imagine that impact repeated many times over.
Maurits also mentioned midwives who had to deliver babies using the light from their cell phones, with their cell phones held in their mouths, unable to communicate with the mothers during that time. Again, quantifying the benefits of WakaWaka (or other solar-powered battery+lighting systems) in one such case is impossible, let alone thousands and thousands.
Check out the full interview at the top if you haven’t yet.
Again, thanks to Remco van der Horst, COO of renewable energy crowdinvesting company Duurzaaminvesteren and founder of consultancy Greenproc, for arranging this interview for me.
Images via WakaWaka
Related Stories & Videos:
Product Review: Portable Solar Charger By WAKA WAKA POWER
Off Grid Electric’s Aims, & How SolarCity & Off Grid Electric Got Connected (Video Interview)
Why M-KOPA Solar Is Winning Award After Award (Video Interview)
SolarAid Has Delivered 1.5 Million Solar Lights In Africa (Video Interview)
BNEF: Off-Grid Solar Market To Reach $3.1 Billion By 2020
Solar Power Empowers The Poor (Video Interview)
#SharetheSun Launched By WakaWaka
Off-Grid Home Solar Provider Fenix International Has Signed 60,000 Leases In Uganda To Date
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Our Latest EVObsession Video
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
I’m curious what the ratio is between solar/led lights and kerosene lamps. Seems kerosene is hoplessly uncompetitive now.
It would be interesting to know something about their distribution model. There seems to be a controversy in progress between charities who would air-drop devices in, and market-oriented outfits which devote considerable effort to building up local sales and distribution networks.
This is a market-oriented company. We can reach out to follow up about the specifics.
I remember when this launched on kickstarter a few years back. This was around when Katrina hit and rocked the island. It made tons of sense. Use clean free solar to charge during the day and provide safe and clean light during the night. We bought one as an emergency light at home and for camping/hiking. With our purchase, some kid was able to read their homework without having to worry about knocking over a kerosene lamp and burning themselves.