Phatima Ka Ti Nheleti

The aim of our solution is to reduce light pollution by illuminating with an innovative, environmentally-friendly and creative lamp.

 Phatima ka ti nheleti ("Shine of the Stars" in our local language changana) is a lamp providing a new of illumination, while protecting the night-sky, the environment and all the living things, by reducing light pollution and the use of electricity, its cost and consequently, creating an effective and more proper method of using light.

The name symbolises our necessity of preserving the night skies without failing to light-up the world.

The mentioned lamp would be aplicable indoors and outdoors and would consist of:

1. A LED light bulb, which is considered as ecological, energy-efficient and saver, proper to human health, power cost saver and has a changable intensity.

2. A light fixture made of coloured and decorated tin, which is a recyclable material, directing the light downwards, solely where it is needed, therefore preventing it to escape into every other direction. 

3. An alternative electrictity provider using renewable energy a solar panel to harness sunlight and a wind turbine to harness wind power.

4. Motion and "dusk to dawn" sensors used to monitor the use of the lamp indoors and outdoors.

Our solution uses simple processes and technology so as to afford the best way of illumination.

The problem in focus is light pollution. Light pollution is the process of changing the natural lighting and brightening the sky at night. This is caused by the use of lengthened and excessive artificial lights.

The scale of light pollution within my community is very low, considering that Mozambique is a developing country that still finds it difficult to illuminate every part of the country. However, it is already experienced in the main cities and especially in the capital, Maputo.

Additionally, in a worldwide scale, the level of light pollution is very high, especially in Europe, North America and East Asia and it will increase even more in the future with urbanisation and overpopulation.

More than 80% of the world's population lives under light-polluted skies, according to a BBC's article.

The factors that contribute are various, including: street lamps, car lamps, satellites, night sports stadiums, gas flares and machinery, electronic devices, residential places, commercial advertisements and public centers.

The consequences are very severe, such as: 

Human health - sleeping disorders, circadian cycle alteration, diabetes, vision loss, prostate and breast cancer.

Environment - negative impacts on animal and plant physiology, confuse animal navigation, change predator-prey relations, disrupts ecological dynamics, decline in some insects population.

Astronomy -  Loss of visibility of celestial objects in the optical spectrum will lead into a harm in observations an thus, affecting negatively scientific data of the Universe.

Increasing energy consumption - This often means that non renewable and financial resources will be used and wasted.

The target population is especially the one who lives in the most light polluted areas of the world. Furthermore, our solution can serve any community who lives in urban and suburban places. The mentioned people lack of a proper illumination both indoors and outdoors that does not pollute and scarcity in effective laws that protect the environment from the existent local light pollution. Last but not least, it can also help the population living in rural areas by establishing an illumination system based in renewable types of energy (wind and solar), not depending in the local electricity and thus decreasing the number of people who have deficit of light in their houses at night.

For instance, in Africa there are still 600 million people without access to electricity and in our country, Mozambique, only 35% of the population has access to it, according to the International Energy Agency. And so, our solution would help a lot of underserved africans by addressing their needs.

Basic information and advantages of the producted would be provided so that there is more education concerning the use of light and the raise of awareness in the need to reduce light pollution.

Lastly, our solution at a large scale would enable the creation of jobs, since we would be working with local people to produce the lamps, therefore increasing the rate of employment and contributing positively to the economy of our country, as well as preserving the human long culture of looking up to the stars. 

National survey - Mozambique

International survey - English

We ran two surveys virtually, reaching 76 people, with the objective of understanding the needs and opinions of our intended public: one for Mozambique and another for international citizens.

The results were truly great. Concerning the national inquiry:

We reached 41 Mozambicans from the south (Maputo, Inhambane) and the north (Nampula, Niassa) of the country; 51% male and 49% female, the majority ranging between young ages: 11-20(49%), 21-30(46%). We noticed that half of them felt disturbed with light. 100% agreed light pollution is a problem that deserves an attention not given, 100% depends in the public service of electricity, which underlines the lack of an alternative source. 

We reached 35 international citizens from 11 countries namely: Brazil, Portugal, Chile, Egypt, India, Ecuador, Italy, France, Nigeria, Panama and Sierra Leone. We reached all age ranges from 11-61+, 55% male and 45% female. The majority felt disturbed by light at night, 54% uses renewable energy, 46% non-renewable.

Moz 95%, Inter 94% of the respondents believe our project would generate a positive impact; Moz 51%, Inter 60% would be willing to use our lamp and Moz 46%, Inter 40% would use in case more information was provided.

Mozambique - 54% thinks the project is good, 32% thinks it is excellent; in a scale from 0 to 10, the majority classified the project as 10.

International - In a scale of 0 to 5 on the importance of the problem and project, 51% gave 5.

It was chosen concept as the stage of development of our solution because it is a recent ambitious idea which can still be improved in order to achieve the main goal, which is to create a better way of illuminating, without polluting the environment.

Our team has accomplished several things to date. For example, we did a research to better understand the problem we are working on, we ran two surveys to gather important information on the topic, we created a model of a lamp that is aplicable to both case scenarios, indoors and outdoors, we have had technical instructions to construct a prototype from an electronic engineering student and contacted possible partners, such as the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), some local illumination shops and astronomical associations who work on this topic.

1. Firstly, the application of an existing technology that are the LED lamps, which are lamps that use solid-state technology to convert electricity into light. Put simply, LEDs are very small light bulbs that fit into an electrical circuit. Unlike traditional incandescent bulbs, they don’t have a filament that burn out and they don’t get very warm. Because of its high efficiency and low light output, LEDs are now replacing conventional high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps indoors and outdoors, lightning communities around the world. LEDs help lower carbon emissions by reducing the demand for electricity, which is still largely generated by burning fossil fuels. 

  2. Secondly, will combine the existing LED technology with a new sustainable technology - manufactured light fixtures, made of a recyclable material (tin).

The light fixtures serve as a shield for the lamps and they also minimise glare and light trespass which in turn facilitates better vision at night, as well as less pollution.
Thus, our solution is a twofold way of taking action to combat climate change and its impacts. It tackles:

• Light pollution and its disadvantages
• Upcycling, by taking these undervalued materials and adding value while transforming them into new objects, giving them a  purpose of serving the communities and the world.
• Climate change.
• Sustainable communities (UN SDGs)

3. Also, the  energy source used in our project will also be sustainable/renewable - we will use solar panels and wind turbines.

4. Lastly, sensor electronic technology would be used control and reduce the use of light at night.

Since our solution is still a concept and not yet launched, we will focus on the number of people we expect to impact positively in the next year. We plan to reach at least 200 houses and considering inside each of these houses, 5 people would be living there, we would be changing the lives of approximately 1000 people during the launching year and that number would gradually increase with time.

In addition to what has been said, we would like to illuminate some of the streets in our city with our lamps, as well as replace some of the existing unshielded light fixtures with our renewable ones, therefore impacting many more people living in Maputo.

Our main impact goals for the next year are the following:

1. Reduction in the local light pollution by applying our idea and lighting-up hundreds of houses and some streets of our city.

2. More access to a environmentally-friendly illumination by making our lamps affordable to anyone who is interested in making a change and by raising awareness.

3. Education of local citizens on illumination, the advantages of our solution and light pollution negative efects by carrying out talks and creating a simple informative booklet that would come with the product and as an advertisement too.

4. Make constant different surveys into users and non-users to verify the advantages/disadvantages of our invention, to run some studies into the amount of presence and absence of light pollution effects and to get the feedback from the users through paper and internet.

5. Engage more partners and funders into our mission so that it can develop even further. This would be achieved by advertising the product and by explaining personally the importance of our solution to our country and the future of the world.

Our solution would lead us to contribute directly and indirectly to some of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, namely: No poverty, good health, renewable energy, good jobs and economic growth, innovation and infrastructure, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate action and partnerships for the goals.

Some of the indicators we plan to use to measure progress are the following provided by the UN:

1. No poverty - Proportion of the population living below the international poverty line by sex, age, employment status and geographic location (urban/rural).

2. Good health - Mortality rate attributed to household and ambient air pollution.

3. Renewable energy -  Proportion of population with primary reliance on clean fuels and technology.

4. Good jobs and economic growth - Annual growth rate of real GDP per employed person.

5. Innovation and infrastructure -  Proportion of population covered by a mobile network, by technology.

6. Sustainable cities and communities - Proportion of municipal solid waste collected and managed in controlled facilities out of total municipal waste generated, by cities.

7. Responsible consumption and production -  Domestic material consumption, domestic material consumption per capita, and domestic material consumption per GDP.

8. Climate action - Number of deaths, missing persons and directly affected persons attributed to disasters per 100,000 population.

9. Partnerships for the goals - Total government revenue as a proportion of GDP, by source and proportion of individuals using the internet.

Some barriers that are currently existent for us to reach our goals are lack of financial support, small number of people in the team, insufficiency in the number of partners that could help, reduced statistical knowledge to measure progress, living in a developing country which is not very concerned about being sustainable while illuminating, lack of laws that protect the environment when talking about light pollution, undersupply of machinery and technology used in the production of lamps.

Our team is composed by 4 members: Amirah Izidine  (team leader and Astronomy student), Edson Jequecene, Humberto Tandane and Nunes Assamo.

One of our motivations to solve the problem is that we are directly affected by it, considering that we belong to a volunteering Astronomy club called "Detetives do Cosmos", dedicated to science and astronomy outreach. We have even participated, representing Mozambique, in the International Astronomical Search Collaboration for asteroids in October, 2021.

For this reason, we have a direct contact with the locals through TV, radio, social media and even schools, reaching people from all ages and from different countries. This would facilitate the communication with our community, enabling the education on light pollution and the deliver of our solution.

One experience we have had is not easily finding a place nearby Maputo city, where we can observe astronomical events, without being affected by light pollution. 

We understand that with the urban areas growing in our country, light pollution will increase and we want to prevent it in advance, working towards a more sustainable way of living.

Another experience we have all faced is constant power disruptions, leading to illumination cuts in our homes and thus, we feel the necessity of providing mozambicans a better and more trustworthy alternative energy supplier, not depending in the national energy institution.

As an individual (Amirah), I would say my skills include communication, leadership, persistence, and they would be helpful. I got very interested in solving this problem because I dream of becoming a professional astronomer and I understand all the negative impacts this creates in the Astronomy research field.

In conclusion, I would say we can greatly represent our people into fighting against light pollution by implementing our solution.

Currently, we contacted several institutions and received a positive response of partnering with the International Dark-sky Association (IDA), a highly recognised institution who aims to reduce light pollution worldwide.

We are still waiting for their reply for details, but we are planning to work with them to ensure the education of our people into light pollution and its impacts and in the creation of appropiate models of light fixtures.

We also visited some illumination shops around the city and captivated the interest of one of them called "Brilhante", shop which offered to partner with us on materials such as solar panels, however we are still waiting for further information.

Finally, we got the support of the founder of the "Sociedad Astronómica de Nuevo León" and Astrophycisist Tania Arguijo, who will guide us in legal matters and how she got to create a national law against light pollution in Mexico.

I am an 18-year old girl who is leading a team addressing a sustainability issue and a change-maker in my community, thus I am qualified for the mentioned prize.

Our team pretends to benefit our people by creating something new and contribute to a better lifestyle that has as a priority the well-being of the environment and planet Earth.

I have always believed my mission of live is to create a positive impact in the world and leave an eternal legacy and this prize would help me achieve this goal.

I want to be the voice of all Mozambicans into establishing awareness through education and change through our solution, that can assure a better tomorrow.

Finally, I want to inspire all girls by giving them confidence to be an inventor and make a change. I want them to know they can achieve anything they put their minds into, that being the case, the HP Girls Save the World Prize would allow us to meet all these goals and more, by providing us a space to grow, to speak and to develop our idea with the financial help given.

I am a young leader, a young woman who has the mission of improving lots of lives in the world and I am starting my path of serving others through this solution to an unmet environmental need, thus I am qualified fo this prize.

As a girl and a change-maker, my priority is to focus into educating girls, especifically about science in general and light pollution in this case. As Mandela once said: "Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world."

Our team pretends to build skills and encouragement in girls and women to be great leaders, to follow their dreams, not only lighting-up their homes, but lighting-up their minds. 

We want to create opportunities for them to perceive they are limitless, such as the creation of jobs and workshops of leadership, involving them also into science and technology.

The Pozen Social Innovation Prize would concede us all of the above and ultimately, would benefit us with financial help to support the spread and development of our creation.