Project name:
Elpis Solar
One-line project summary:
Next-generation off-grid solar solutions to enable the modern refugee to provide his community with essential services and connectivity.
Present your project.
With over 68 million refugees and growing we live in the greatest era of mass migration known to man. Current refugee camps lack access to the most essential services (clean water, electricity, education) necessary for their development.
Our vision is to empower refugees around the world to lead a prosperous life wherever they go, re-instilling hope for their future. We have developed next-generation off-grid solar-tech solutions that catalyse the transformation of stagnant refugee communities into places of opportunity and growth. Our off-grid solutions are operated by refugees (solar entrepreneurs) who enable essential services in their communities through our devices (water filtration, mobile phone charging, digital services and light).
With a current proof-of-concept deployment of 11 solar systems across 6 refugee camps in Europe and Africa (Greece, Rwanda), impacting more than 35,000 people per month - we have a validated approach that if scaled up will impact the lives of millions.
Submit a video.
What specific problem are you solving?
Refugee camps today, particularly in Africa are often unelectrified, with poor infrastructure and no opportunities for employment, education and civic engagement. In particular, Rwanda currently hosts more than 173,000 refugees in 6 main camps, 2 transit centres and 2 reception centres. We visited three camps (Gihembe, Mahama, Kigeme), which all did not have adequate access to electricity, clean water, education and employment.
The lack of electricity in the camps reduces the potential for refugees to earn any income, and complicates economic participation with mobile money being a key financial vehicle across Africa. Concerns over water quality are leading many refugees to boil water which is resulting in the deforestation of the surrounding countryside. Furthermore, lack of lighting in the evening is compromising safety, particularly of women and girls. With a growing number of smartphone users, connectivity is also a problem due to financial barriers. This coupled with sparse in-camp educational opportunities for adults, means that many are left with little to no future employment prospects.
These problem statements also hold true across refugee camps in Europe (Greece, Serbia), the Middle East (Jordan, Lebanon) and Asia (Bangladesh, Myanmar) and thus we have built our solar systems to address these key needs.
What is your project?
A group of students from the University of Edinburgh, in collaboration with a Greek solar technology company developed two off-grid solar systems, a mobile phone charging system (SolarHub), and a charging system that also provides water filtration (Swapcy). The SolarHub powers 3600 phones per month, and Swapcy filters up to 9000 litres of water per month as well as charging 1200 phones and providing light in the evenings. Furthermore, all of our units include an integrated offline educational content platform that is made available via a local WiFi hotspot. This ‘Digital-Hub’ currently contains over 250GB of educational content in French and English (complete copies of Wikipedia sorted by subject, over 40,000 e-books, TEDx videos, interactive science games and others). Now anyone with a WiFi-capable phone can access this information without needing a connection to the internet.
Following up the successful project pilot (07/2018) in Rwanda largest refugee settlement (Mahama camp), we have now upgraded and upscaled our devices to provide advanced water filtration using novel UV-sterilisation technology (1500lt/day servicing capacity), along with the introduction of remote-monitoring capabilities. Such an upgrade will enable the running of data analytics, capturing and reporting the impact generated by our devices in real-time.
Who does your project serve, and in what ways is the project impacting their lives?
As climate mediated dislocation is on the rise in neighbouring countries, Rwanda has now become a hotspot of migration for thousands of refugees wishing to establish new permanent communities. Residents living in these refugee communities, some of the most vulnerable individuals, are this project’s direct beneficiaries.
We have adopted a validated learning approach, and have identified camp residents specific needs and responded with a tech-solution that puts refugees back in charge to provide for their own communities. With access to electricity being limited across all 6 Rwandan camps and the water quality not adhering to government standards the use of our offgrid solar systems as a ‘business in a box’ solution goes hand in hand with the lack of employment found within the camps.
After conducting 4 months of in-depth market research in Rwanda, including interview sessions and focus groups, and having now piloted our units for almost one year in its biggest refugee camp (Mahama Camp), we have built lasting relationships with refugees and gathered key insights to our proposed solution. The message we have received is that our solutions are transforming lives, and empowering refugees to deliver critical services within their communities in a sustainable manner.
Which dimension of The Elevate Prize does your project most closely address?
Elevating opportunities for all people, especially those who are traditionally left behindExplain how your project relates to The Elevate Prize and your selected dimension.
With over 68 million refugees and growing we live in the greatest era of mass migration known to man. Current refugee camps lack access to the most essential services (clean water, electricity, education) necessary for their development.
Our socially responsible business empowers refugees helping the upskill and provide for their families. By providing our devices to the communities we service refugees take full-ownership of these shared resources making a supplementary source of income. Our aim is to continue delivering positive and transformational change in a sustainable manner.
How did you come up with your project?
Elpis Solar (Greek for “Hope”) was born out of a direct response to the influx of refugees who have been arriving in Europe since 2015. During that summer, I was volunteering in an Institute of Marine Conservation in Samos Island (Greece) as part of my university degree, when I experienced first-hand the arrival of rafts making a treacherous journey across the Aegean Sea. It all started after being approached by a family of refugees at the port of Samos Island, wanting to use my phone in order to reach their relatives, transfer money and access information. This encounter brought to my attention the value of access to information and electricity during emergency response situations.
The event triggered mine and my classmate’s Samuel Kellerhals desire to offer and give back by designing a viable solution that could address the need of mobile phone charging; a need often neglected by humanitarian aid providers. Within 5 months, by applying to business incubation schemes, by receiving grant funding and support from crowdfunding campaigns, in collaboration with a Greek based solar-tech firm (Entec S.A) we managed to build a working prototype that could then be deployed in real time.
Why are you passionate about your project?
Being Greek, having experienced the refugee crisis first hand at its onset when camp facilities were still disorganised, being considered as temporary screening and relocation centres, still having an off-grid status attached to them, incentivised me and my classmate and co-founder Samuel Kellerhals to take action the moment the crisis was unfolding. As undergraduate university students studying environmental sciences with management, learning about sustainability, renewables and the importance of safeguarding energy safety/security, we felt the need to act and try to address the refugee crisis in our own way. Putting theory into practice and applying our knowledge and skills together in order to deliver value, we came up with a basic, yet effective, design of a solar powered mobile phone charging station.
At first, moving from a concept sketched on a piece of paper to a deployable working design seemed rather challenging. However, knowing that this refugee crisis was like no other, as large numbers had ended up in camps which often lack essential services such as electricity, information and clean drinking water, sparked our desire to give back promoting positivity. Understanding that climate-mediated dislocation is on the rise we aimed to design a resilient, user-centric, low-carbon, community-driven solution.
Why are you well-positioned to deliver this project?
Our growing team differentiates itself by covering three key areas needed for the realisation of our projects. We merge expertise in technology, green finance and local knowledge of the problem at hand to develop effective solutions that have the user at the centre of our developments.
As an individual, I am a self-starter with the ability to work collaboratively in breaking-down complex problems, while effectively conveying ideas/data around cleantech innovation trends, business and energy modelling strategies. Proof to that my track record of involvement in social innovation start-ups specialising in solar infrastructure, think-tanks, and youth innovation forums
Most recently, I was recognised as the most-distinguished graduate of my faculty (School of Geosciences) for my academic performance and thesis, analysing the current and future electrification needs of an off-grid refugee camp in Greece (Kara Tepe, Lesvos), modelling and presenting an alternative Emergency Energy Model (EEM). The above achievement emphasises my passion for the world of data analytics (data handling & visualisation) in the energy sector. I am confident I can draw from this knowledge and academic background, integrating it to our project for the design of new value propositions around the provision of voluntary carbon offsets/certificates.
What I also bring to the team is experience in energy finance, ESG investing, carbon accounting and green & sustainable entrepreneurship. I aim to continue combining technical and business model innovation for the delivery of viable solutions for the world’s population without access to electricity and clean potable water.
Provide an example of your ability to overcome adversity.
Moving from an idea on a piece of paper to a working prototype comes with a lot of hard work, business ‘pivoting’ and perseverance. If it wasn’t for our determination and decisiveness to secure an in-kind collaboration with our working partners in Greece that helped us design, assemble and deploy our Solar Hubs, we wouldn’t be able to achieve the impact we have accomplished today. So, going back to our initial steps, we knew we had to get the validation of a big institution as well as some mentorship support in order to be as lean and efficient as possible in our pursuit of having something functional, robust and low-cost. That’s when we applied to the Clinton’s Global Initiative conference in Berkeley University, where we got selected as finalists.
Unfortunately, we returned to Edinburgh empty-handed as business mentors found our timeline of delivery ‘too aggressive’ as a nascent student-led initiative. Similar was the response from camp management when reaching out to secure camp permissions. Despite the challenges faced, I persevered, taking the feedback provided on-board, steering the team’s focus towards the refinement of our outreach and crowdfunding efforts even shortening the delivery of our emergency relief response solution.
Describe a past experience that demonstrates your leadership ability.
With a current proof-of-concept deployment of 11 solar systems across 6 refugee camps in Europe and Africa (Greece, Rwanda), impacting more than 35,000 people monthly. We have a validated approach that if scaled up will impact the lives of millions.
However, achieving the goal of driving organic growth comes with hardships. Liaising with camp managers and convincing local authorities and NGOs about the usefulness of our solar infrastructure can seem rather bureaucratic and cumbersome at times. The ability to put users and their needs first, communicate our social mission and operate as an agile/efficient team in a dynamic environment has brought certain personal skills and attributes of mine into the surface.
For example, during one of our first installation pilots, during our university reading week, I had to overcome the long waiting times posed by NGOs when granting camp access, split the team of recently trained volunteers across different geographies and coordinate installations remotely. There were instances when I had to take the initiative and fly over to the Greek islands to install units alone, utilising the ‘philoxenia’ and support provided by the locals. Such moments were stressful nonetheless vital in delivering our team’s project plan frugally and successfully.
How long have you been working on your project?
almost 4.5 years
Where are you headquartered?
London, UKWhat type of organization is your project?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar modelsIf you have additional video content that explains your project, provide a YouTube or Vimeo link here:
Describe what makes your project innovative.
Disrupting the existing localised water-treatment and distribution models which rely on large-scale facilities we have developed community-scale mobile solutions, requiring minimal O&M costs (40$/year), offering the highest possible quality of water filtration and disinfection and the opportunity to upskill local communities.
What differentiates us from other solar-powered water filtration solutions is the cost-effectiveness of our operations for the net impact generated (number of users accessing our services) by our devices. The ‘Solar Water Alternative Purifier and Charging System’ (Swapcy) is the first off-grid product of its kind combining double layer water filtration bundled with UV-C sterilization (1500 litres per day) and mobile phone charging (28 per day) at the community scale. At 2,700$ (2,400 €) Swapcy outcompetes both Naiade’s and Biosun’s (main competitors) systems both in terms of price and specs.
Our technical innovation is supplemented by novel business modelling. We deploy a micro-entrepreneur model that empowers camp residents to run their own solar charging business. Unit managers gain valuable skills and income, whilst some of the proceeds cover operational and maintenance costs.
What ensures the scalability of our solution is the multi-streamed revenue generating approach adopted, with proceeds circulating back to communities. Lastly, in addition to the following revenue streams: micro-entrepreneurial business model, digital CSR and the integration of a matched funding revenue stream (which speeds-up our break-even times), we are exploring the option of integrating verifiable voluntary carbon offsets, which impact investors and corporates can purchase as part of their internal GHG offsetting pledges.
What is your theory of change?
Mission Statement:
Our goal is for refugees in Rwandan refugee camps and eventually around the world to become self-sufficient and be able to enable essential services within their own communities.
Activities:
We aim to start by deploying 12 units (6 Solar Hub & 6 Swapcy) across three Rwandan refugee camps, whilst providing entrepreneurship and business training to 12 solar entrepreneurs.
At the same time we will commence with prototyping our solar street light modules to be sold as a service in MEDCs, starting with Switzerland where we already have received interest from the municipality of Wohlen.
Short Term Outcomes:
In the short-term this will result in thousands of litres of clean water every month along with access to free educational content and electricity for mobile phones, all provided by our solar entrepreneurs (See diagram for details)
We will also start establishing partnerships with municipalities in Switzerland and thus establish a key foothold in the market to start generating recurring revenues to expand our impact.
Medium Term Outcomes:
In 2 - 3 years we will have empowered hundreds of refugees to run their own businesses and become self-sufficient. At the same time we will have built up a bidirectional low-carbon development pathway as we reduce emissions in MEDCs through our solar products, and through that also fund clean-tech projects in refugee camps.
Long Term Outcomes:
After 5 years, in many camps the social dynamics will have changed, and refugee camps will become areas of opportunity rather than of frustration and poverty.
Select the key characteristics of the community you are impacting.
Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your project address?
In which countries do you currently operate?
In which countries will you be operating within the next year?
How many people does your project currently serve? How many will it serve in one year? In five years?
In 2016 - 2017 we deployed 7 Solar Hubs in Greece with a capacity to charge 25,200 phones per month. In summer 2018 we deployed two additional Solar Hubs (12 charging ports x 10h daily operation per unit) and two Swapcy units (8 charging ports + 300 litres of water-filtration per day) units in Mahama Camp, Rwanda, resulting in an added capacity of 9,600 phones charged and 18,000 litres of filtered water.
Feedback collected from camps has shown that average usage is 70% in Greece and 80% in Rwanda. Therefore, mobile phone charging in Greece translates to approximately 17,640 monthly charges, and 7,680 in Rwanda. Water filtration is used at its optimum with users utilising the free nature of the service, reaching the daily limit of 300 litres per day, per unit.
In 2020-2021 we plan to install an additional 12 units across Mahama Camp and two more Rwandan camps, with 2 Solar Hubs and 2 upgraded Swapcy units (1500lt/day capacity) in each location. A feasible projection for our impact would be the following:
1. Solar Hubs: Monthly rate of 17,280 charged phones and access to digital services.
2. Swapcy: Monthly rate of 270,000 litres of filtered water, 5,760 charged phones, evening light and digital services.
In the long term, assuming organic growth and aggressive marketing to obtain both CSR related funding, Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and sustainable revenue generation from the micropayment scheme, we aim for a 10% increase in the number of annual installations in refugee camps.
What are your goals within the next year and within the next five years?
After having obtained a proof-of-concept of our MVP empowering refugee communities in Rwanda, we now aim to scale-up and replicate our approach to serve the needs of more people.
This year we will invest in R&D to upgrade our SWAPCY unit to incorporate UV water-filtration, thereby significantly reducing the replacement costs for the multiple currently installed ultrafiltration membranes. We also aim to increase the daily filtration capacity to 1500 litres. New developments will also encompass enabling remote-access on our in-camp digital platform. Here the goals are to start generating platform use-data, allow content to be updated remotely and to monitor the impact we are having (number of charges and users). Through API access we ill be able to offer access to impact investors to our online interface where they can track and monitor the impact generated per dollar invested as part of their CSR portfolio. This will also enable us to offer a path to tradeable verifiable carbon credits which can then be used to offset GHG emissions, generated internally.
With some funding secured from the MIT Solve and Andan foundation we are working towards further upscaling the micro-entrepreneurial model and reach of the digital-hub, as well as developing a new low-cost, portable solar-powered water disinfection unit (utilizing UV-C technology).
Looking ahead, we aim to reach more than 7 million people over the course of 5 years, providing that we can form partnerships with UNHCR, NGOs and telecoms that wish to reach out with their services to larger refugee communities.
What barriers currently exist for you to accomplish your goals in the next year and in the next five years?
Financial:
- Starting capital ($100,000) is required for the installation of 40 more units within the next year.
- Funding is required to enable remote-access capabilities on the digital-hub, allow faster charging through USB 3.0, and measure phones charged through the addition of a current sensor.
- $6,000 is needed for the testing of various UV filtration solutions, ensuring goodness of fit with the scale of filtration we are performing, and the energy supplied by our solar system.
- $20,000 is required for R&D and market testing of 15 new small domestic devices Swapcy (smaller portable water purifiers and chargers intended for domestic/family use)
Technical:
- Right combination of sediment filters and UV technology is required to improve water quality whilst reducing replacement costs.
- Various technologies to establish internet up-link within camps must also be tested to enable remote-access, the same applies to electrical load monitoring (number of charged phones).
Legal:
- Issuing IP and legal protection for our new offerings co-developed with ENTEC S.A.
- Obtaining an extension of camp permissions in Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda by drafting several Memoranda of Understanding with the Ministry for Refugees.
Cultural:
- Gaining the trust of the local board of seniors within camps and ensure the pricing of our services do not compromise the ability of other vendors to make a living.
- Provide tailored digital content (libraries of e-books/resources) according to the demographics of the camp (age, languages).
- Ensure adequate training for microentrepreneurs and the design of a ‘user manual’ answering queries.
How do you plan to overcome these barriers?
With regards to technical challenges, Entec S.A, an Athens based company with extensive experience in solar-energy and water services (filtration, desalination plants) in municipalities has agreed to extend their collaboration with us and help us improve and upgrade the Swapcy unit by retrofitting a UV filtration component. The additional electronics upgrades for the Solar Hub will be carried out by informatics students at the University of Amsterdam.
With regards to the financial needs of our venture, we are exploring a matched funding mechanism with other NGOs as well as planning a second crowd-funding campaign which will help us kick-start this scale up. We are also exploring an extension of our collaboration with the Swiss organization, Andan Foundation.
Any legal and cultural complications are addressed by utilising our network of mentorship schemes offered by our universities (Imperial College London, University of Amsterdam) along with independent support received from our previous base, The University of Edinburgh. Challenges Consulting Rwanda will help us resolve any logistical, legislative and communication related issues in Rwanda and neighboring countries by playing the role of our in-country team on the ground. MIDIMAR, UNHCR and the network of solar entrepreneurs and volunteers we have established under the supervision of Fidele Gisore (Challenges Consulting Associate) are also some of the key links we have established locally. Challenges International operate in 7 more African countries so the same model of market entry can be replicated for new geographical locations in the future.
What organizations do you currently partner with, if any? How are you working with them?
Entec S.A.:
Provides solar-powered modules, technical and logistical support. As our closest working partner, Entec S.A provides these components and has over 30 years of experience in the Greek energy sector. This standing in-kind collaboration is vital to our success, as Entec is currently helping us design, prototype and optimise our products at cost and is responsible for the manufacturing and shipping of the units as well.
Challenges Worldwide
Challenges have been supporting Elpis to enter the Rwandan market through short-term work including, market assessments, business development, training and mentoring of local volunteers in liaison with UNHCR and state authorities in Mahama Camp. They researched needs on the ground from January until April 2018, also conducted literature reviews and online research using UNHCR data and documentation.
Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts:
Elpis Solar is an industrial partner of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. Recently, Samuel Kellerhals supervised a bachelor thesis in an Industrial Engineering & Innovation course with the aim to develop a circular business model and conduct market research in Switzerland.
ECCI (Climate KIC):
Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation is a low carbon hub, facilitating the EU-funded Climate KIC programme, assisting Elpis Solar with the refinement of its green business model and access to new markets.
Andan Foundation:
Andan Foundation is a non-profit Foundation in Switzerland dedicated to refugee self-reliance. As a previous funder of Elpis Solar, it is responsible for scaling-up Elpis through strategy consulting, donor relation support and project coordination support.
What is your business model?
We operate a circular multi-sided business model that accelerates low-carbon development across borders.
Microentrepreneur model:
Within refugee camps, we allow residents to become microentrepreneurs by operating our off-grid solar systems as solar charging businesses, with the addition of the sale of other potential services (e.g. airtime). Utilising mobile banking services (i.e. mobile money accounts) carried out via SMS, they collect micropayment for our services.
As our deployments in refugee camps grow, we aim to collect micropayments for water filtration services, too, at very low rates (0.05$/20Lt). Recognising that these communities have low disposable incomes (20-70$/month) we have ensured the carrying out of operations at the least possible maintenance and replacement costs (≈ 40$/year).
Combined with a matched funding mechanism approach, where 50% of the capital expenditure for the installation of the Swapcy devices is covered by corporate sponsors/impact investors/NGOs and/or governments, the devices can break-even within the first two years.
Digital CSR:
Finally, our digital platform provides a direct way for organisations to interact with refugees and enhance their CSR portfolio. We will offer the opportunity for digital service providers to disseminate their content on our platform. Furthermore, advertising opportunities will also be made available for selected organisations.
Impact investing:
Corporates can invest as part of their CSR investment portfolio, partaking in the matched-funding programme of subsidising installations. By offering access to an API platform, visibility and transparency over the impact generated per dollar invested will be offered, as well as access to potential verifiable carbon credits.
What is your path to financial sustainability?
For the past 2 years during our initial ideation and prototyping stage we relied solely on philanthropy to fund our activities, however we now aim to validate our business models and become a financially sustainable venture.
After months of empirical qualitative research in the Rwandan market, we have identified a key opportunity, selling access to portable low-cost water disinfection/purification units across off-grid communities. This will constitute our primary revenue stream, which we will use to fund R&D and further installations of our solar systems in refugee camps. Our next steps are now targeted at developing a minimum viable product for the African market and following up with our leads to initiate a testing phase with families being the end-users in Rwanda’s rural areas. This testing phase will inform product development and our route to market strategy, which ultimately will result in a recurring revenue stream for us.
Next, we seek to approach potential partners for our micro entrepreneurial model (e.g. Rwandan Telecoms like MTN Rwanda), so that they can provide their products to sell alongside our stations. We will take a processing fee and after scaling up operations across more camps this will constitute another significant revenue stream to cover in-country maintenance and operations.
Finally, we also aim to approach organisations and companies that create digital content and services that could be consumed within refugee camps. Here we will also charge a premium for certain companies to be able to host their content/advertise on our platform.
If you have raised funds for your project or are generating revenue, please provide details.
Throughout the past 3 years of starting this project, we have raised approximately $40,000 through crowdfunding, philanthropy and university grants. With every new deployment into a different refugee camp, we applied design-thinking methodology to deeply understand the needs of refugees, develop and reiterate our solutions in accordance with their top priorities.
Over time we have started moving away from the philanthropy-based model. Since our first installation in Rwanda (07/2018) we have focused on developing sustainable business models and have started validating our ‘solar microentrepreneurs’ model in Mahama Camp. Without remote monitoring capabilities and zero charges applied for water filtration, the revenue generated from mobile-phone charging can only cover the high monthly filter replacement costs. Learning from our Rwandan pilot we have now improved the technical capabilities of our device, piloting a new means of estimating and logging micropayments, while reducing O&M costs to only 40$ per year for a 540,000Lt UV filtration capacity.
Securing an additional $35,000 from MIT Solve (09/2019), allowed us to upgrade and optimise our units, while re-designing our business modelling around a matched-funding scheme, enabling us to recoup CAPEX. This funding will allow us to pilot-test our upgraded units and finetune our ‘micropayments’ collection scheme for the services offered.
With this application we seek to further build on what we have learned and once again seek funding to advance our venture to the next stage, as we have always demonstrably done in the past.
If you seek to raise funds for your project, please provide details.
In order to turn the goals described previously into measurable impact, taking our idea into a larger scale proof of concept we would require a total of $180,000, out of which $100,000 would go for the funding of 40 units while the remaining $80,000 would be split equally for R&D with regards to the UV filtration retrofit, and the further development of our digital content (offline e-library). An initial capital outlay of $100,000 by February 2021 in the form of grant will allow us to execute our project plan for installations during summer 2021. The remaining $80,000 can be provided into 2 instalments every 6 months thereafter following a matched funding agreement. We would welcome any proposals for the purchasing of equity stake in our project (up to 5-8%) for the funding of further R&D and commercial applications of solar infrastructure in MEDCs with the aim to feed-back the profits generated back to the social arm of our project (i.e. serving the energy needs and digital literacy of refugee communities). This option of equity stake offer will allow us to also attract partners that believe in the idea and that can bring valuable insights and links into our venture.
Below you can find the pricing of our solar powered devices:
- Solar Hub: solar charging unit (120 charges per day with educational content) - $1900 per unit
- Swapcy Plus: standard filtration unit (1500lt/day UV-C sterilisation/filtration) - $3200 per unit
What are your estimated expenses for 2020?
Swapcy standard filtration unit (300 litres per day using membrane filtration) - £3000 per unit
Upgraded Swapcy 3.0/UV light units (1500 litres per day using membrane and UV filtration) - £3200 per unit
Why are you applying for The Elevate Prize?
We’re applying to The Elevate Prize to turn Elpis Solar into a fully financially sustainable social enterprise - where until now it has been a student-led initiative. Primarily we seek to access the expertise and mentorship from the Elevate Prize community to validate and build upon our current business models and solutions. We also hope to attract talent and organically grow the team by building the foundations for the formation of a socially responsible and impact-driven firm.
We are at a crossroads where we know that our solutions work, and that there is a strong demand for them, however we still need to keep strengthening our ties with both impact investors and partnering organisations on the ground which can act as our distribution channels.
In order to do this, we require funding to scale-up our micro entrepreneurial model to more camps in East Africa, and invest into developing a full-scale entrepreneurial training and monitoring programme in those camps, while also setting up a micropayments scheme. Moreover, by running project pilot for new franchising and distribution models and by deploying our solutions at larger scales we can obtain carbon certificates (voluntary carbon credits) for the carbon offset by our operations.
Furthermore, we also seek to invest into R&D to make our units more useful to refugees, and thus increase the success of our solar entrepreneurs. One of these changes is the design of new lightweight, portable domestic water purifiers which can be used as a shared resource (community-ownership model) amongst families.
In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?
What organizations would you like to partner with, and how would you like to partner with them?
In order to help us scale our solutions within Rwanda, we seek to enter a Memorandum of Understanding with the Rwandan Ministry for Refugees. Such partnership agreement can then be replicated with neighbouring countries. Furthermore, a potential partnership with UNHCR has also been discussed during a meeting with the regional UNHCR manager in Rwanda in July 2018. We envision to become a key partner of UNHCR to help them deliver critical/essential services at the initial phase of refugee settlement formation. Discussions with UNHCR representatives have also shown that they would see us as a potential primary distributor of information throughout refugee camps via our digital platform (as this is something they have struggled to find a solution to in the past).
Furthermore, we also want to partner with high-quality providers of educational content and MOOCs such as Edx. A partnership as such would enable these organisations to directly impact the lives of millions were their content to be integrated into our digital platform and deployed in refugee camps. Other organisations in this space include Khan Academy, Coursera, YouTube and Kiwix.
Additionally we would like to further diversify the offering of our solar mobile phone charging stations by allowing our microentrepreneurs to also sell airtime. This is made possible by partnering with telecoms, in particular in our case with MTN Rwanda. Lastly we also seek a partnership with the Raspberry Pi Foundation in order to access subsidised single-board computers and Alphabet or Amazon to get free credit allowances on data storage.
Please explain in more detail here.
Through this partnership we can leverage of the global name you have developed, access tailored media packages and support in communicating better our story while keeping the conversation with partners going on the front of participating in one of our matched-funding seeking crowdfunding campaigns.
Additionally, given the nascent stage of business activity, as we have only been registered as an limited liability company, we would be grateful if we can receive legal and accounting advise on how to onboard members, grow the team, expand our offices overseas and finally work towards enrolling as a hybrid social enterprise which circulates any profits generated back to the business for the further delivery of net impact.
Solution Team
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Mr Alexandros Angelopoulos C0-founder and Operations & Manufacturing R&D lead
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Your bio:
Alexandros Angelopoulos is the co-founder of Elpis Solar (Greek for hope), a social enterprise that delivers essential services (i.e. access to clean, filtered and disinfected water, mobile phone charging) to underserved off-grid communities worldwide through solar power. Thanks to his multidisciplinary background in Ecological and Environmental Sciences with Management from the University of Edinburgh and a Master of Science in Climate Change, Finance and Management from Imperial College London, Alexandros has capitalised on the skills and knowledge acquired through his UK education to advance social innovation through resilient clean-tech solutions. He has received several awards (i.e. Dean’s award for the ‘Power of Innovative Thinking’ and the Principle’s Medal for his contribution to the community) in recognition of his impactful work (35,000 users/month) across eight refugee camps in Greece, and in the biggest refugee camp in Rwanda, as well as a social impact and leadership scholarship from Imperial College London.