WECOL: Grass to Energy

1. Problem: Kenya is energy insecure by being biomass fuel dependant. 

70% of the total energy consumption is met through biomass. Industries consume biomass as the most cost-effective way to meet their thermal energy needs. This causes deforestation as demand outstrips supply. 

2. Solution: Speso is a grass to energy project managed by blockchain.

Our own Drought Resistant Grass (DRG) biomass fuel is grown in arid areas. Leveraging blockchain supply chain management, we incentivize communities to plant trees using tokens generated on our blockchain . We call our tokens, SPESO.

3. Global Impact: Tokenized green energy revolution creating sustainable economies.

According to UNWater.org: "The water-food-energy nexus is central to sustainable development. "

By having an integrated system producing food, water, and energy in a verified process backed by a green energy token, we can meet this global demand, and drive sustainable development. 

Kenya is energy insecure. 70% of the total energy consumption in Kenya is met through biomass. The majority of biomass fuel is sourced from wood fuels. For communities, this means that their natural resources in the form of forests and enclaves on community land are illegally raided, devastated, and left degraded with almost none of the proceeds flowing back to the communities.

The main consumers of biomass fuel are industries (5,000 TPD)and domestic. Natural forests subsidize the supply in the form of wood fuel or derivatives like charcoal. Though it may seem the cheapest source of fuel, as loggers do not factor in the cost of replenishing the trees, it is the main cause of deforestation. This triggers a domino negative effect on the environment, society, and the economy. In addition to the loss of natural habitats and climate change, deforestation degrades the land to such an unsustainable point that it renders the land useless. 

Why do industries do this? To maintain competitiveness, industries need to manage their energy costs. Especially the ones that are thermal energy-dependent, they turn a blind eye because there no sustainable cost-effective alternative to wood fuel that is supplied at scale.

Wecol intends to use energy crops that thrive in arid and semi-arid land which takes up to 80% of Kenya's total landmass. We have developed a suitable energy crop which we have branded DRG (drought-resistant grass). DRG is a perennial grass native to Africa (hence not evasive) that does not infringe upon food cropland (20% landmass) and provides great yields in the tropics. Under irrigation, we get an annual yield of 130 tons per acre of USABLE biomass fuel. From field to fuel, the DRG is harvested, dried, and processed into briquettes/pellets to increase density and reduce the volume to maximize transportation.  

Leveraging on IoT and a blockchain management system, not only do we get visibility of the value chain, we can verify and integrate a green energy tokenized system that will incentivize the replenishment of forests. This system will enhance efficiency in the production of biomass fuel thus making it cheaper, better, and greener than wood fuel.  

Our target population is communities living in Kajiado County. These are largely Maa-speaking people and they are pastoralists by nature. They are currently underserved because:

They have no direct source of green energy eg solar power and rely heavily on firewood and charcoal for their daily needs. They have little to no food production ongoing in the county other than providing meat through cattle. They have to trek very large distances to find water and fodder for their animals and homesteads. The land is arid or semi-arid and is largely degraded due to the over-exploitation of natural resources.

As we develop this solution we are responding with our first intervention which is, we will provide the opportunity for the communities to access potable water from our site. When fully realized, grass to energy running on blockchain will provide a means for communities to earn tokens by: 

1. Providing seed balls and saplings that communities can plant and rewarded in tokens.
2. Optionally, they can redeem those tokens and collect potable water or briquettes.
3. later when we integrate food production, they can also redeem for produce. 

We are growing our community networks, and our relationships with the local representatives, community organizations, and farmers who will be part of our supply chain. 

Wecol promotes a resilient ecosystem by closing the loop that stakeholders in the value chain are challenged by. By producing cheaper biomass fuel for industries mitigates the occurrence of deforestation by shifting the demand away from wood fuels. Simultaneously we introduce a new economic activity to land traditionally considered as 'waste'. In growing grass, the green leafy tips that are not fibrous are left in the field after harvest for pastoralists who, in turn, naturally fertilize the DRG farm soil when their animals defecate as the feed. 

We are testing in the Kisaju area, Kajiado county which is 54.9 km from Nairobi's CBD. The community currently working with us is the Maasai people from Kisaju. We have partnered with 2 commercial farmers who are in direct contact with the pastoralists in that area. There is a paddock model in place where livestock grazes on harvested land. Harvesting consists of mining the fibrous stalk and leaving the grass ends in the field for livestock to eat. Since we are not in direct contact with the pastoralists we cannot ascertain how many they are. 

This solution is a significant step towards mitigating Kenya's energy insecurity by providing a cheaper, scalable, and greener alternative to wood fuels. What Kenya is facing is a reflection/sample of what Africa is challenged with. We close the loop by introducing a fuel that earns industries green credentials whilst introducing new economic activities to the traditionally considered wasteland. We know that our model will catalyze our perception of arid and semi-arid land. The DRG farmland will act as a carbon sink, will mitigate topsoil runoff, and will be the demand center for labor. Scaling up will also trigger an out-grower model making us the off-taker that does the feedstock conversion into fuel. The model is modular, scalable, and is a template that can be implemented across the continent. 

Current number of beneficiaries: 30

In a years time number of beneficiaries: 600 - 1000

In 5 years time number: over 6000

As a signatory to the UN Global Compact, we are enrolled in the SDG Innovators Programme which is a 10-month program to guide us in designing a project aligned with the global sustainable goals. We are in the process of adopting IRIS+ which is the generally accepted system for measuring, managing, and optimizing impact. In the next year we plan to establish matrices and reporting ecosystem that targets:

1. SDG 1 with a target of 1.1 establishing the extremely poor living on less than $1.25 per day that we can partner with. Target 1.5 by partnering with those most vulnerable to climate-related extreme events 

2. SDG 7 by ensuring universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy (Target 7.1). Upgrade technology for supplying modern and sustainable energy services for all in Africa (Target 7b)

3. SDG 15 by promoting the halt of deforestation (Target 15.2). Restore regarded land and soil affected by drought and floods (Target 15.3)

There are 7 executive directors working full time on this project.

We have 2 full time staff

we have 5 part-time staff

3 contractors

CEO - Tapuwa Ndongwe is a sustainability enthusiast with a background in engineering and finance. His vision around how to integrate technology to both meet biomass demands in Africa and reclaim land is the inspiration for this project.

Ben Mogaka - Director of ICT - Ben's background spans East africa as an expert in financial and payments systems as well as digital energy solutions.

Betty Waitherero - Director Blockchain - Betty is a communications professional who has specialized in blockchain solutions specifically for sustainable energy approaches that incorporate communities.

Dr. Fridah Njogu - Botanist - Dr. Njogu leads our research and development team that has developed drought resistant grass species as an energy crop for Africa.

Carol Ogada - Director Finance - Carol has a strong background in finance for sustainability and organizational management.

Andrew Amadi - Technical Director - Andy is a certified green energy expert and an engineer focused on green systems. His extensive knowledge on energy management is the catalyst to our project

Titus Terrah Njihia - Operations Director - Titus is an engineer with a background in energy efficient systems and he leads our operations and manufacturing team.

Our leadership Team is about 45% female, and is composed of people who come from different ethnic backgrounds, who are committed to disrupting deforestation in Kenya. 

Among our team members we have members who are on the autism spectrum, having hearing impairment, and are diagnosed with Bipolar, making us diverse neurologically. We have policies in place that accommodate for everyone's needs, ensuring that those with disabilities are not hampered or impeded from working and they have support they need. 

We believe that our approach to renewable energy, by focusing on biomass production, will not only lead to land reclamation and disrupt deforestation, the grass to energy project will unlock communities potential to create sustainable economies within themselves.

We are applying to Solve, because it is our strong contention that not only can this approach work for Kenya, but it can work around Africa, allowing this project to become the largest energy development company in Africa, focused on sustainable industrial fuel, zero waste and community empowerment. 
We appreciate the Solve platform for its ability to not only call attention to our endeavor, but to amplify our solution towards solve members and the investor community around the world. We hope that MIT Solve can help us find our kindred spirits in organizations that are equally committed to sustainability, communities, and ending deforestation in Africa. 
We also believe that MIT Solve program will greatly enhance our knowledge repository for the benefit of our project, and team leaders.

Financial - We would appreciate support in finding the right investment fund, being able to pitch to them and determining outcomes of any partnerships formed thereafter. 

Legal or Regulatory Matters - we require assistance in addressing existing regulation in Kenya around biomass production, forestation and blockchain. These 3 areas remain largely unregulated in terms of legal sources, market and in the case of blockchain, unrecognized. We see this as a long term goal for legislation and have begun discussions with committees from our National Assembly especially regarding taxation of biomass.

public relations - We would need support in out reach to industries and in managing our public presence around the world, and within different forums focused on blockchain applications and renewable energy.

Monitoring and Evaluation - we would need support in collecting and measuring our impact, currently there is little to no reliable data available on biomass and its supply vs what we understand to be current national demand, which sits at 70%

Technology - we will be needing specialists focused on AI, IOT solutions for enterprise, to build viable solutions to automate our processes from farm to factory.

We are interested in partnerships with the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund, who are keen to pivot their nation's economy towards renewables. This fund would greatly enhance our ability to scale, in order to meet existing demands for biomass energy.

We are interested in partnering with organizations that are focused on climate change, carbon capture technology, and sustainable ecosystems. In addition, we are focused on precision agriculture and IOT solutions applied to blockchain and would partner with organizations that are focused in these areas for knowledge exchange, grants and technical support.  

We are also interested in partnerships with cryptocurrency focused institutions for the sake of commercially realizing the full capabilities of a coin back by real world green energy.

Our approach integrates communities in our farming and land reclamation activities. We use a model created by Allan Savoy, whereby we ask the pastoralists in the Maa communities to herd their cattle on land we desire to prepare for farming, and again after harvest, where we leave silage from the grass for their cattle to consume. The cows hooves help turn over the land, and their waste leaves nutrients in the form of manure. In this way, we improve the land, reclaim it with drought resistant grass, and also provide fodder for the pastoralists. 

In addition, we intend to incentivize communities to replenish forest resources, by using our tokens to motivate tree planting. we provide seeds for this purpose. 
In our system our benchmark is 30% carbon capture, and our integrated process engages communities to be part of that carbon capture initiative. 

Because we are using tokens to incentivize tree planting, we also encourage communities to use our blockchain platform, to record their work, and to receive payments, which is a revolution in financial inclusion, for Africa.

We will use the fund to scale our operations from pilot phase to MVP over the next 1 year, with an intention to go from producing 15 tons daily, to producing up to 150 tons daily. 

In our system, we use Artificial Intelligence to manage our data from our IOT system and aggregate and interpret that data for the sake of precision in our farming and manufacturing process. With ever more accurate systems, and data recorded on public accounting infrastructure, we give life to sustainable ecosystems that are digitally inclusive and immutable. 
We would use the prize to enhance our AI, and gain the necessary experts in data science, artificial intelligence and blockchain so that our platform is optimized.

Our system produces tokens pegged to real world energy that is set to a specific electrical energy value in kwh.
We use these tokens to incentivize communities to plant trees and replenish flora in arid and semi areas, and the trees in turn improve the quality of the land, and drive water upwards. This allows for communities to reclaim land and be less dependent on aid in these areas. 
We intend to list our token in an international exchange, allowing for people around the world to directly invest in sustainable ecosystems, tree planting, carbon capture and green energy. 
we would use the prize money to enhance our blockchain platform, build user interfaces that are adaptable to the communities we are working with, and also to enhance our outreach and partnerships within the areas we are working.