Drop Access

The Elevate Prize Funding will be channelled towards scaling up the work of my organization. We will manufacture more VacciBox units, our portable solar-powered vaccine cold storage solution, and supply to rural health facilities at the same time, improve the application to enable more capabilities as real-time vaccine tracking.

I will also use part of the Elevate Prize money to pay myself a salary. Since I started the NGO two years ago, I have only managed to pay myself for cumulatively 7 months period. I often prefer to channel my compensation towards growing the organization, ultimately leaving me in personal financial struggles. What drives and continually motivates me is waking up every day to positively impact the lives of low-income African communities.

The Elevate Prize will give me a global platform to amplify my work. I will use it to create more partnerships as well as form a network of like-minded change-makers from all over the world. My dream is to scale up the impact to other African Countries through support from the prize.

The 2-year long mentorship program will be a great opportunity to grow the organization. I will use the opportunity to learn about global leadership strategies.

I grew up in energy poverty and I had a front-row view of how the lack of energy impedes the progress of rural African societies as well as aggravates poverty. My biggest motivation is to ensure that African communities have access to energy to promote healthcare, education, gender equality and generally reduce poverty. I remember when I was younger, it was the norm that every childbearing woman in my community, at one point would lose a pregnancy or a newborn baby. I later learned that most of these women failed to get the best maternity care at the community health centre due to the lack of basic necessities like reliable lighting at night and other electric-powered equipment. When the health centre got electricity, more babies survived delivery and healthcare improved. They also experienced better medical care and access to cleaner and safer water. This is why I co-founded Drop Access, an NGO that develops sustainable rural communities in Kenya through energy access. We provide productive use of energy solutions to rural communities through solar water pumping, solar cold storage and energy capacity building. Our goal is to end energy poverty in Africa in the next 2 decades.

The problem I am addressing is energy poverty among the rural, low income and off-grid communities in Kenya and Africa. Globally, 940 million still live without electricity and Africa hosts 560 million of this population. Also, 87% of them live in rural areas.  My country, Kenya has managed to achieve 85% electrification rate yet millions living in the rural still lack access to sustainable energy. This is due to high connectivity costs that is a great barrier to access for the rural population. Among the challenges of inaccessible electricity in Kenya is poor healthcare, especially in Tier 3 and below health facilities that serve 90% of the rural populations.  Lack of sustainable electricity in these facilities has created a cold chain gap for vaccines, blood for transfusion and other drugs that need appropriate refrigeration measures in over 3,000 rural health centres in Kenya.

My organization innovates affordable productive use of energy technologies and assets for use by rural and off-grid communities. We have developed VacciBox, a portable solar-powered fridge that can easily be mounted on a motorbike or bicycle for transportation. It is ideal for safe transportation and cold storage of vaccines, blood for transfusion, drugs and other medical items.

VacciBox is light and robust, it can be easily mounted on a motorcycle or bicycle to transport vaccines, blood for transfusion and other medical items in rural and off-grid areas. The fridge runs on either grid or Solar power and its inbuilt lithium-ion battery. This provides a sustainable cold store, enabling night and field use with a running time of up to 12 hours on battery alone. VacciBox also has 2 USB charging ports.

VacciBox uses Internet of Things (IoT) technology to enable;

- remote troubleshooting in case of malfunctions

- Stock management: health workers can input and manage the stock levels in the fridge.

- Remote sensing, monitoring and control: temperature display and control, battery charge status, health workers receive alerts when the temperature is out of range, the door is opened and when there is a fault.

- Real-time tracking: all VacciBox units link to a platform from which location, vaccine utilization rates, expiry dates, batch numbers can be tracked in real-time. This information can be used to inform decisions on resourcing vaccines and other medical supplies to areas in need. This is useful to the Ministry of Health and other organisations to evaluate and plan healthcare programs.

We are improving the quality of healthcare in low-income, remote and rural Kenyan populations. We are reducing neonatal and infant mortality. According to UNICEF, most childhood deaths in Kenya are largely preventable and occur before the first birthday. Three in 10 children are not fully protected against the scheduled vaccine-preventable childhood diseases by the age of one year hence contributing to the annual 74,000 deaths of children under five years.

We are reducing maternal deaths in Kenya by improving the logistic and cold chain for blood for transfusion. Post-partum haemorrhage is one of the leading causes of deaths in new mothers according to the Kenya Health Service Delivery Indicator Survey (SDI). It is promoted by lack of blood and blood products. VacciBox is partnering with the Kenyan Government to help the Ministry of Health embrace and scale up innovations that increase blood and blood products availability and safety.

We are preparing for the universal vaccination of Kenya and Africa against COVID-19. VacciBox ensures that the vaccine is accessible to all who need it by providing sustainable cold storage and logistic needs for this initiative. Its versatility enables it to be used both at the facility and at field-based medical programs.