25.01.2022
Entrepreneur Brings Clean, Affordable Energy for Sierra Leone's Rural Areas
, Jeremiah Thoronka and Optim Energy, the 21-year old Sierra Leonean has harnessed piezoelectricity to create a sustainable source of electricity for rural communities. Simply put, this form of electricity makes use of kinetic or movement energy when pressure is applied to certain materials. Thoronka's design uses heat, movement and pressure. It absorbs the vibrations from pedestrians and traffic to generate an electric current and create clean and affordable power. This invention won Thoronka the Varkey Foundation's Chegg Global Student Prize 2021 in November. According to the World Bank only 23% of Sierra Leone's population are able to use electricity. Optim Energy has already supplied 150 households and 15 schools with power free of charge. In 2019, the local grid in the rural area where Optim operates experienced a 5% improvement in energy access - and in 2020, the company was among 98 leading energy startups listed by the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth. Credit: a plus , UPLINK
Poverty deprives people of adequate education, health care and of life's most basic necessities- safe living conditions (including clean air and clean drinking water) and an adequate food supply. The developed (industrialized) countries today account for roughly 20 percent of the world's population but control about 80 percent of the world's wealth.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
