MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name

light a home

One-line solution summary.

smart metered system for prepaying for biogas allowing uninterrupted supply in an affordable way.

What is your solution?

most small scale farmers in arid and semiarid areas keep very little number of livestock ,since the resultant farm waste and animal waste cant feed a biogas plant, it is left to disintegrate on farm and compost while these farmers suffers from lack of efficient cooking fuel .

we are a biogas construction company that have advanced in controlled rapid fermentation through use of effectively selected bacteria vials and controlled temperature and ph to ensure our biogas production unit is 50% faster and achieve 30% more yields.

Through light a village, we design and construct community biogas on credit to aggregate of small scale farmers who manage and feed the biogas from their waste, the system come with a smart meter and measuring that predict the amount of biogas to be produced from feed waste and smart regulator to ensure the gas pumped out matches the paid credit(pay as you use). as a company charge 20% of the cost of gas produce which we use to recoup our investment plus 20% profit of investment within an year. at non farming periurban community, we own the plants wholly and buy organic waste separated from houses as feed stock through redeemable points

What specific problem are you trying to solve?

High methane emission from disintegrated animal waste in rural villages and organic waste in peri urban regions leading to global warming in the midst of high rate of tree felling in rural areas for cooking fuel.

In rural kenya,an average farmer has 2 cows our equivalent number of pigs/chicken.The resultant waste isn’t bulk enough to feed a biogas plant, inmost cases these waste is left to ferment and compost in field or community piles in high density residential areas.The results; High methane emission leading to global warming,foul smell from ammonia produced as well as possibility of water pollutions where waste is pilled and washed to rivers during rainy season.

In Kenya 85% of rural dwellers depends on firewood for cooking , these leads to high level of deforestation and a great contributor to desertification.

Light a village, has its beach head operational area in Nakuru city neighbourhood,a semiarid area surrounding international bird area of l. Elementainta, locally the area is protect for bird conservation and women and girls from the locality have being ,raped,beaten and some jailed as they sneak to fetch firewood. It is for these reason that we decided to act and develop a solution from what they have on farm as well as replicate these to thousands of farmers in central and rift valley Kenya.

Who does your solution serve? In what ways will the solution impact their lives?

our beach head market is nyandarua and nakuru county where we are targeting to serve 50% of 80,000 households that have a cattle and still uses wood fuel for cooking and heating .most of them earn below $2 per day and affording gas would be a problem to them. however from point trading through waste supply, we are able make biogas refill affordable to them

What steps have you taken to understand the needs of the population you want to serve?

i was born and brought up in Nyandarua, a small scale farming hub with a population of 80,000 farmers.Of these population, 90% depends on firewood for lighting despite the wet waste generated per day being approximately 400tonnes with equivalent of 1.6 million litres of ghg emitted to environment. I Grew up knowing every end month weekend as a tree felling weekend for firewood, the luxury is no more as trees are few and government is more strict.

Volunteering as scout in 2017 at a conservancy in l.Elementaita, i witness the pain that local communities around semi arid conservancy goes through,women and young girls as per society norm would sneak for firewood oblivious of dangers of wild animals and unmerciful security personnel.

its after these pain that i sat with 3 local women cbos to strategize on the way forward, i learn the first model in 2019 which was a success and am building on these to scale on operations .

Which aspects of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Taking action to combat climate change and its impacts (Sustainability)

Our solution's stage of development:

Pilot: An organization deploying a tested product, service, or business model in at least one community

Explain why you selected this stage of development for your solution—in other words, what have you accomplished to date?

We have already done pilots which have being sucessful. however we have introduced more services in our model and we want to build on these in our next mvp( enhanced and digitally regulated biogas plant)

Where our solution team is headquartered or located:

Nakuru, Kenya

Team Lead:

james kamau