The ACE One

Over 95% Ugandans cook on rudimentary stoves. The most popular fuel is charcoal, which significantly accelerates deforestation. If deforestation continues at its present rate, there would be no forests left in Uganda in 40 years. Due to smoke exposure, over 10,000 Ugandans die prematurely every year. 

Poor cooking habits also constitute a lost opportunity. The distribution of clean cookstoves in Uganda would create high-quality employment opportunities for women, as studies show that woman-to-woman marketing drives higher sales, and women usually give access to more networks of customers. Youth will also benefit from digital up-skilling to help in their career development.

ACE has developed the right product & operational model to  scale the distribution of cookstoves across rural Uganda. The ACE One is unlike other cookstoves, as it also provides access to electricity which helps families save significantly on energy costs (83%), making the product accessible to $2-a-day rural households.

Uganda has a highly underdeveloped energy infrastructure. Of its population of 43 million, 95% employ traditional cooking methods, such as three-stone fires. As a result, there is an over-reliance on biomass which is contributing to the rapid rate of deforestation in Uganda which currently stands at a loss of 86kha of tree cover every year. In addition, traditional cooking methods result in high levels of Household Air Pollution (HAP), with negative consequences for the users’ health. Over 10,000 Ugandans die prematurely every year from diseases attributable to HAP. 

Despite this, the thermal energy market in Uganda is very underdeveloped. There is an opportunity to introduce a clean cooking solution which meets customer needs. Developing the clean cooking sector would create hundreds of commercial and managerial roles, particularly for women. Studies show that woman-to-woman marketing in the clean cooking sector drives higher sales and women usually give access to larger customer networks. Despite this, the Ugandan energy market only employs 22% women. 

The thermal energy sector has a total market potential of 6.2 million households. Supporting its growth will create employment opportunities in rural and peri-urban areas where they may be lacking while reducing environmental pressure and protecting customers’ health.

The ACE One is a leading energy product in its category:

• reduces fuel need by 50-85%
• gives access to solar electricity for charging & lighting 
• customers save on average 83% on expenses
• recognised as the most cost-effective cookstove in terms of annualised costs
• every 25k units distributed avert 40 deaths and 1,295 DALYs from reduced cook-smoke exposure

We distribute B2C, by establishing offices in 2nd-tier towns and employing sales staff to travel and demo the product. We've been in Uganda since 2016, and have 2 offices in Mbale and Gulu, with 52 employees in total.

We've digitised everything in the sales & after-sale process, and new recruits are trained extensively in digital and soft skills using our internal modular 'ACE Academy' training package.

This is an opportunity to create employment in overlooked regions of the country. There is such immense demand for the ACE One in Uganda that we've always had problems keeping up the supply to meet it. With MIT's support, we can invest in more human capital and a local manufacturing facility to better meet demand at scale. This will result in 400+ new jobs, and 180k+ households gaining access to clean cooking in the next 3 years.

Our target employees are ambitious people with a desire to learn. Our hires are assessed on their potential rather than performance, so no prior knowledge or experience is required. Our objective is primarily to create decent employment opportunities for youth (88%) and women (57%) in the areas we work where Covid-19 has had a particularly negative impact on economic opportunities. We aim to hire 80-90% youth and 60% women. 

In order to understand our employee’s needs, we use available market figures as well as extensive communication with ACE Ugandan managers to derive an understanding of the local living wage. To see how ACE can improve as an employer, we conducted an anonymous survey with all ACE Uganda employees exploring their previous employment situation and how ACE compares. 

ACE employees are given support to climb the career ladder through meaningful training via our ACE Academy training programme and the opportunity to work for a fast-growing company in Uganda. We plan to open offices in various second-tier towns in the coming years, presenting opportunities for our employees to develop in their current roles. ACE’s operations are also largely digitised, so ACE employees have the opportunity to learn valuable digital skills.

ACE uses technology to deliver a superior cookstove with a stronger business model. After validating product-market fit, there is clear evidence that we are uniquely positioned to build a clean cooking business with nation-wide reach in rural areas of Uganda. This will create employment opportunities where they are needed most, allowing youth and women to gain a living wage, new digital skills, and knowledge in the energy sector. We are equipping workers with digital literacy and the durable skills needed to stay apace with the changing job market, which is one of MIT's most sought-after solutions within this challenge.

There is a prevalent misconception about the energy needs of poor BoP consumers. Over 95% of kWh consumed by this demographic are for cooking and heating, and very little for basic electricity. However, the latter comprises the bulk of the monthly energy expense (through incremental purchases of kerosene, batteries, etc) and this creates a critical market barrier: improved cookstoves are considered unaffordable because they don't generate significant financial savings, and solar home systems (SHS), though they save money, are not powerful enough to provide cooking capacity. 

The ACE One solves this problem. It symbiotically pairs clean biomass combustion with solar electricity which enables the device to have the environmental, health and social benefits of a cookstove (the cleanest multi-fuel cookstove in the world), with the business model of a SHS. It is a disruptor, an essential tool for improving the life and financial resilience of families in the developing world. 

It’s a high-quality consumer energy  product. Even considering rudimentary cookstoves, the ACE One is the most cost-effective solution offering both thermal energy and electricity. Improved cookstove producers (Mimi Moto, Envirofit, BURN) have products priced between $40-60, and none offer a fuel-flexible forced-draft cookstove. Solar panels at the lowest price point (d.lightS500) cost $30. SHSs are significantly more expensive, going from the BboxxBB17 Kit ($220+), to the Mobisol basic 3-light tenbo ($1.6k) which, although they can power laptops and TVs, don’t  target the lowest income households where fuel, lighting and charging costs are creating an inescapable cycle of poverty.

The ACE One burns any type of biomass with 50-85% fuel reduction, minimises smoke emissions to a negligible level to protect users' health, and uses a solar-charged battery to give users access to essential electricity for device charging and lighting. A complete household energy solution for Bottom-of-Pyramid (BoP) consumers, the ACE One not only saves time in gaining access to energy, but also a lot of money. In Lesotho, our customers save an average of 83% on their energy expenses with the ACE One.

The ACE One is not just the first cooking technology to combine solar and biomass. It’s also the first to integrate smart M+E electronics. ACE's innovation is to use smartphones to host data transfer functions through the USB charging ports, therefore  upgrading it to 'smart' without increasing the associated costs. The ACE One is sold in a bundle with smartphones having the ACE app pre-installed, which allows us to sell on a Pay-As-You-Save model, incentivise the customer through a gamified loyalty program and monitor maintenance and usage issues remotely. The smartphone provided  is often the first in the household.

Aside from the ACE One's direct impact, ACE's gathers a lot of date on remote households in our markets (on whom little data is currently available due to difficult research conditions). Using digital forms, we perform baseline & follow up surveys with customers about their energy consumption, and to date we have collected over 10,000 surveys. 

ACE was voted as a top 10 Dutch company with export potential in 2017. ACE is running 4 active projects in collaboration with government agencies. ACE was named Top 50 to Watch by Cleantech Group in Paris in 2019. There are currently 9 retail-locations open, and 20+ in pipeline. In 2020 we opened our second manufacturing facility in Cambodia, and by 2021 we will also open a facility in Uganda. We closed our seed round in 2020 and are currently raising a €15million series A round. 

To see how it works: https://vimeo.com/403294291

ACE will undertake a series of activities to achieve the impact foreseen for the project:
1) applying refined learnings from Mbale and Gulu to identify and expand to new locations in 2nd-tier towns of Uganda. First locations considered are Arua, Fort Portal, Mbarara, Lira, Jinja, Kabale. 
2) creating 400+ full-time jobs nationwide in commercial, admin, operations, supply chain, HR, and management roles.
3) establishing a local manufacturing facility with 50 production & warehousing personnel
4) building an HR & training department of 19 staff across the country, responsible for training, career development, employer branding and employee happiness.These activities will have several outputs: 
1) ACE will establish 12 new offices in 2nd-tier towns of Uganda 
2) the HR & training department will handle the onboarding of 400+ new staff
3) ACE will host a local manufacturing facility in UgandaThis will result in ACE having an improved presence and market reach across rural Uganda, giving low-income households access to clean energy. The newly recruited staff will gain a living wage while developing skills & knowledge in several business areas of the clean energy sector. The new manufacturing plant will facilitate us to scale by strengthening unit economics and allowing us to have a higher supply of products to meet demand.The impact will be that 180k+ households will gain access to clean energy for cooking and electricity, which will protect their health and strengthen their economic resilience. Clean cooking will also bring a sizeable environmental impact, averting 1+ Mtonne of CO2 emissions and660k tonnes of woodfuel use in the first 4 years of the project. Last but not least, hundreds of Ugandans (predominantly youth and women) will have stable, full-time jobs which pay them a living wage and contribute to their career development in the clean energy sector.

Currently: 300,000 people

End of 2020: 360,500 people

End of 2021: 565,065 people

End of 2025: 3,724,945 people

The long term vision of ACE is to scale up our advanced infrastructure of digital tools and physical locations to lift people out of poverty and connect them to the world. ACE is continuing to roll out a customer facing loyalty app which rewards customers for the positive social and environmental impact they create by using the ACE One, as well as by purchasing more sustainable fuels. 

Our vision is that by using smartphones and smart tech to connect our customers to development donors and impact investors, we can create a marketplace where poor families in the developing world can offset their additional investment cost by choosing sustainable fuels, choosing clean energy, reducing fuel use and therefore GHG emissions (etc) and be rewarded for investing in those positive impacts. In order to scale this up, ACE will invest in ensuring clean and sustainable biomass fuel supply chains are scaled up, either internally or in collaboration with local partners, to ensure a reduction in deforestation, increase tree cover and increased usage of agricultural waste as a fuel source.

Our key barrier has been a skills gap. Most candidates we encounter are low-skilled, have not had opportunities for formal employment, and they come from an educational system that has failed to equip them with relevant skills to help them succeed in the private sector. We have identified the following skills gaps in our recruitment processes: 

a) Digital skills: Our operations are highly digitised, and new recruits coming in do not have the tech literacy to handle all the systems in the beginning: digital forms, Salesforce, Sage, email, filing to the cloud, etc. We solve this by gradually training our staff in using all the systems that are relevant to their jobs. Young people are very intuitive and they quickly pick up new softwares.

b) Soft skills: We have a high-touch customer journey. Our sales agents connect & demo the product to customers directly. Customer care representatives continuously keep in contact about microloan repayments or product matters, and maintenance workers travel to every home to troubleshoot when needed. ACE is passionate about building a great customer experience, and we extensively train our staff in soft skills ( communication, interaction, complaint handling, etc)  to be able to perform in their roles.

Currently we are working on the introduction of our own in-house training program: The ACE Academy, a comprehensive training framework focused on identifying and bridging knowledge/skills gaps through training. 

The first step involves a Basic Knowledge Assessment which evaluates the employee’s current knowledge and learning needs. Then, based on the findings, participants can use our mix-and-match modules on different company subjects to design the right learning roadmap that fits their learning needs, and complete it at their own pace. 

The training is delivered either through workshops, in-field practice or e-learning materials. Upon completing the training roadmap employees are evaluated, and new learning goals are defined. Training is continuous: the training officer will organise weekly workshops for the staff, learning goals are periodically evaluated. The framework is in testing, and it will be introduced in July-August 2020.

Our ACE offices also have a tradition of hosting monthly trainings on a chosen theme, to encourage learning, knowledge sharing, and more importantly, team building exercises.

In addition to the aforementioned training opportunities, if ACE employees express that they want to learn more than we can offer, we encourage them to do so. Our sales representative Brenda Kwaga (21) is pursuing an online course in social media management and she is learning to manage the ACE Uganda Facebook page. 

ACE comprises of a group of companies that serve the markets they operated in.The headquarters are in Amsterdam, but we have entities in Lesotho, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Cambodia and the USA. 

We currently have 237 full time staff globally with 54 in Uganda (of which 57% are female, including 63% of our management team). 

ACE and ACE Uganda are led by a team of experienced professionals as well as long-time company loyalists who have guided ACE’s transition from start-up to a scale-up with a strong business case in Uganda: 

Uganda Country Manager: Tyra Oduttu

• Background in law and internal audit
• Set up the ACE Uganda venture in 2017

Operations Manager: Judith Walker

• Joined ACE in 2014, built the operational infrastructure
• Selected as Forbes 30 under 30 European Social Entrepreneurs in 2016

CRM Manager: Brett Battie

• Worked for 10 years in the UK banking sector before joining ACE in 2018
• Salesforce expert; architect of ACE’s CRM infrastructure

Tech Developer: Wang-shi Hu

• Senior developer with 15 years experience working in the mobile tech sector
• Lead in tech development and integration of the ACE Connect PackageGlobal Project Coordinator 

CEO: Ruben Walker

• Founded ACE in 2011
• Environmental engineer with 4 years experience working in mobile tech

Financial Controller: Baptiste Roussel

• Worked 11 years as a financial controller in the insurance industry (Atradius) before joining ACE
• Oversees global accounting and compliance practices for commercial and development activities

Uganda Operations Manager: Tyler Sanderson

• 3 years experience at Peace Corps Zambia
• Joined ACE originally in CambodiaUganda Regional Manager: Moses Opio
• Joined ACE as a sales rep and grew into regional manager
• Leading expansion efforts to Kenya

ACE is currently working with numerous partners to support us through our scaling stage, in order to be able to generate sizeable climate impact fast enough to mitigate deforestation and climate change. In collaboration with the EU we are building a network of 25 energy shops in Lesotho's rural, difficult-to-reach communities. In collaboration with EEP Africa, we are developing a loyalty programme in Lesotho to incentivise the use of sustainable fuels. In collaboration with DEG and ADA, we are expanding in more rural areas of Cambodia and Uganda. BMW Foundation is one of our earliest and most supportive investors. The Dutch government is funding scaling as well as a Results Based Financing Program in Uganda.

ACE's goal is to make clean energy a reality for everyone. We do this by making our clean energy system, the ACE One affordable to households living on $2/day through the provision of 9-12 month microloan. 

95% of Ugandans rely on traditional cooking methods which expose them to high levels of smoke, with negative consequences for their health. By providing a clean cooking environment, the ACE reduces customers' likelihood of suffering from illnesses related to Household Air Pollution. The ACE also reduces customer fuel need (50-85%), thus saving them time collecting fuel and money on fuel. The electricity provided by the ACE One contributes to these financial savings by reducing their reliance on expensive candles, phone charging costs and kerosene. Our customers save an average of 83% on their energy expenses.

Our partnership with Kiva facilitates us in providing interest-free loans to our customers. The ACE One is sold on a Pay-As-You-Save sales model, so our customers can re-channel the money the ACE One saves them on energy expenses into repaying their microloan. 

The ACE One has integrated smartphone technology. It is now sold with a second-use Samsung smartphone with a pre-installed ACE app, enabling customers to connect their phone to their device to manage their loan repayments and avail of ACE bonus offers. In addition to our digital infrastructure, we provide our customers with a strong physical infrastructure of retail locations and maintenance services on the ground. 

ACE is a for profit company with strong unit economics and a sustainable operations model. Once we establish a presence in the market, we are able to sell products & fuels to generate revenue continuity, and build financially sustainable operations.

MIT’s support will help ACE build economies of scale and establish local manufacturing, which in turn will help reduce costs and improve the bottom line, ultimately helping ACE reach financial sustainability faster. MIT’s contribution will be essential in covering upfront investments for expansion and hiring, especially before reaching the breakeven point, in January 2021. After ACE Uganda becomes profitable, MIT’s support will be slowly phased out, and at the end of the 3-year period local operations will be independent and profitable.

Thus, MIT’s investment is essential in funding the initial ramp up period. It  will catalyse a new phase of growth, helping us build the sales force needed to increase distribution volumes and have a sizeable impact in the thermal energy sector.

Solve would be an amazing opportunity for us to collaborate on expanding our new ACE Academy, and integrating our training framework into a digital platform/app or portal that would allow us to provide consistent, gamified training modules to all of our employees, new and existing, to ensure they have access to further digital skills as well as various specific technical and soft skills required for their roles. Our aim is to expand this program to the point that we can provide more widespread training and use those programs are a recruiting tool for ACE, as well as knowledge sharing within the communities we operate in. We think that by working with Solve to integrate this new branch of the company, we can set the bar for all energy solutions companies and show that with the right support and training, companies like ours can scale rapidly and effectively. We see this as a win-win-win situation, where the company can scale, our employees can grow and prosper and our customers gain access to excellent energy solutions as well as digital and financial literacy skills through our agents and products. We hope you see how exciting this opportunity is and support us in developing and growing the ACE Academy. 

In order to launch and integrate this country wide training Academy, we need to ensure we strengthen our team with multi-talented developers and project managers. The integration of digital technologies runs throughout every department of our company globally. For this expansion we are looking for talent, funding and support in scaling up our operations in Uganda.

We are currently expanding our operations to Arua in Uganda and piloting a model in which we train and recruit women and youth from refugee communities, as well as including refugee (and host community) farmers into our "services for stoves" model, in which we train them in effective tree planting and ensure they are rewarded with access to our energy products and a revenue stream.

Through our training programs we are able to ensure we recruit at least 50% women (with the aim of 60% in rural Uganda) into our workforce. By designing the training to include new participants based on enthusiasm and willingness to learn, rather than existing experience or education, we allow the trainees to gain the necessary skills internally and therefore provide the same opportunity for work regardless of their history of work or education. We want to make sure we recruit with a true equal opportunities mentality, by treating all new recruits as blank slates, allowing them to learn using the 'mastery method', meaning they are able to learn at their own pace and therefore allowing all recruits to grow into their roles. We would use this prize to invest into the ACE Academy with equal opportunities at the centre of developing the training modules. 

The focus of the ACE Academy will the development of digital and financial literacy skills, as well as soft skills required to enter the job marketplace with an excellent skills set. Our aim is to use the ACE Academy internally for our employees, but also to ensure a pathway for growth internally or externally. This prize would allow us to invest into designing the training to include new participants based on enthusiasm and willingness to learn, rather than existing experience or education, which will allow the trainees to gain the necessary skills internally and therefore provide the same opportunity for work regardless of their history of work or education. We want to make sure we recruit with a true equal opportunities mentality, by treating all new recruits as blank slates, allowing them to learn using the 'mastery method', meaning they are able to learn at their own pace and therefore allowing all recruits to grow into their roles.

The focus of the ACE Academy will the development of digital and financial literacy skills, as well as soft skills required to enter the job marketplace with an excellent skills set. Our aim is to use the ACE Academy internally for our employees, but also to ensure a pathway for growth internally or externally. This prize would allow us to invest into designing the training to include new participants based on enthusiasm and willingness to learn, rather than existing experience or education, which will allow the trainees to gain the necessary skills internally and therefore provide the same opportunity for work regardless of their history of work or education. We want to make sure we recruit with a true equal opportunities mentality, by treating all new recruits as blank slates, allowing them to learn using the 'mastery method', meaning they are able to learn at their own pace and therefore allowing all recruits to grow into their roles.

3 billion people are affected by a lack of access to energy and a reliance on biomass. By helping ACE scale our training capacity, we can continue to recruit and train around the world, not just for job rcreation but for the greater impact those employees generate. We foresee being able to reach millions of people with clean energy and smartphone technology and truly see this as the biggest generator of positive impact across most of the Sustainable Development goals. Nothing has as much impact as access to energy and access to connectivity, especially in rural poor communities.