mycoboard for affordable green housing

Crop waste( unused crop straws) is a big problem in Kenya wheat and rice growing regions, with the remain parts after harvest being less palatable to animals , they are mostly piled on end of farms to rot or be burned(80%) while on farm, these leads to losses from all angles from soil degradation to environmental pollution. In a country where rain seasons are becoming shorter, dams are built upstream to conserve water, farmer in middle and lowlands are suffering from increased invasion of swamp vegetations like reeds and tryna which are menace with no commercial value. 2015 kenya government started ambitious affordable housing program, banned tree felling which made the overall cost of ceiling ,partitioning boards and building panel boards to extreme high for local youths. Importation or low stardardard hazardious synthetic boards increased amidst supply gap. We are working to solve crop waste problem while bridging the supply gap of building boards and panel through our innovation works. With a sister company that have made and is making stabilized soil and crop waste building blocks for housing skeleton will are making finishing cheaper , quality and healthy.

Inua mycotile is offering affordable&decent housing to the local poor population in kenya while helping tackle increasing challenge of crop waste mismanagement that leads to increased disease outbreaks . Working from kenya wheat/rice growing region, fungal rust is a common problem, most farmers result in pilling wheat/rice straws after harvest which makes it easy for disease to spill over to the next season, alternatively, these are burned down on farm bringing lots of negative effect. Inua mycotile collect straw&other crop dry waste from rural farmers which we use to grow mycelium as panel. These panel are then treated&pressed to form boards used in house ceiling, rooms subdivision ,door and furniture making on custom orders. Our boards are cheaper when compared to wood based boards, environmentally friendly to make , lighter and custom sized making it easy and cheap while building. From our pilot products we have established that our product are fire retardant thus fits in rural and slum upgrading where house fire are common , they are acoustic and fit office subdivision as they are noise prove. Our r&D Is finalizing boards fused with life long mosquito retardant biochar to ensure house made with our boards are malaria free. 

60% of 40 million Kenyan population are youths, 80% are unemployed while of these 70% lives in rural villages and rental slums areas, as a culture, most of them are geared to marriage and housing that  one own is a critical need  based on African culture. Most of these youths are pushed to construct non decent mud wall ,paper ceiling housing that is risky in all aspect from snake and insect invasion to flooding demolition and cold resultant diseases. We are working in Nyandarua and NAM akuru county with a combine male youth population of 500000. Banking on our local roots we aim to serve 25% of these population in supply of construction boards,panel and doors in our 1st scale before scaling to target 30  middle class real estate builders(companies doing houses on behalf of clients) 5 of whom have tested our mvp in their new model house. Our aim is to serve construction company and work with young civil engineers who recommend material to clients whom they design and build for.

with government ambition to build 2 million affordable housing in Kenya, population on continuous increase,our aim is to capture 10% of ceiling board market, 5% of custom furniture(school furniture) market in 5 years. Scaling to serve east Africa in medium term in b-2-b model where we make boards for real estate companies and furniture makers .

I am a co founder of Inua Uwezo Builders company,social venture that for the past 3 years have being building affordable  and decent housing for rural population using locally available sustainable material and technology to reduce carbon footprint as well as environmental degradation that accompany traditional mud house construction in rural Kenya.

Having being the lead researcher in these company, we were able to develop a low cost mobile interlocking block making machine that is able to make 1500 blocks per day using just 2 litres of diesel and work force of 3 ( any gender as its hydraulic system).We trained locals to make houses through these blocks and 24 houses were constructed from may 2019 to June 2020. Its during finishing of these houses that we discovered the need to have sustainable ceiling, partitioning boards,door panel and single use furniture as what was available  in market compromised our value proportion.

we started research in December 2019,had the first mvp in April 2020&commercially produced for our housing need in June 2020,we teamed up with a student group of civil and construction engineers interning in 5 different real estate companies who run pilots on desirability and quality approval of our product which so far has being positive.

inua mycotile team vision is well molded from our combined 15 years of experience in construction sector and the fact that all of us comes from a diverse fields of engineering and social entrepreneurship.

we are a team driven by passion and knowledge and have being previously being successful in affordable housing sector .

market barriers, technology access and networks

with mit solve and community bringing ,together wide range of innovators and potential investors,  we aim to tap on these networks for us to grow both as a business and technology  wise, mit works in USA,with most advanced technologies in mycelium panel available in USA, We hope that the time and period between ou incubation will enable us access to some of the companies ,learn and if possible partner with them for scale.

With financing we shall get from these  challenge, we shall move closer to commercialization of our business beyond the current pilot steps we have taken .

Products Inua mycoboards are next generation boards that seek to reinvent construction industry. They are light than normal boards making housing structure overall weight low which is good in civil construction sector. They are strong and flexible thus resistant to breakage. They can be customized to size, thickness ,shape and flower designs thus less wastage . They are fire retardant which makes them fit for slum and rural upgrading, acoustic hence can separate huge office spaces. We are in lab to finalize other customization in mosquito repellant through infusion of biochar from natural repelling crops which will make our boards made house a disease safe haven. And infusing fluorescent material from non recycled tubes to make the next generation of housing that requires less lightings Production landscape: we use crop waste and invasive crops which are assumed by others and left to desperate farmers to deal with them at no luck.our model is sustainable and circular and have a huge potential of success considering the trend In housing in Africa. We engage community at the base of pyramid as the source of material, source of labor and ultimate first consumers as giving total complete benefit to the locals unlike others who import and are only interested in profit.

so far we have being able to serve 1500 houses  during pilots, though on small bits we aim to scale to serve 10,000 households in 5 years time upon approval of our material by kebs . we are working to pilot custom myboards for chairs and tables ( learning ) and supply these to nursery schools. our pilot project involve infusing mycoboard panels for tables with long term antimicrobial compound that ensures surfaces made from our products are microbial free, these is meant to ensure we have next generation furniture in our houses and that inua mycotiles is able to absorb 100% of wheat/rice  straws harvested in nakuru and kirinyaga counties in Kenya and in cases of suplus supply of boards(building panels) we are able to continue our production to custom order furnitures .

For every 1 square metre of mycoboard made, 2kgs of straws that could be burnt to emit 4 kgs of atmospheric carbon dioxide is used, considering that we also eliminate the need of cutting down trees for boards, our work is saving our planet from ongoing global warming.

amount of carbon emission prevented by absorbing waste straws that could otherwise be burnt to emit carbon dioxide. these is directly equated to every 1 square metre is equivalent to 4 kgs of carbon emission saved, we are working to have equivalent value to cater for trees saved as well as transportation emission avoided as we make our boards locally.

jobs creation and economic empowerment: jobs creation to population that we engage direct to aggregate waste from community in  rural areas, these are generally women who are stay at home . through buying of waste that would otherwise be burnt , we help raise the income of rural farmers .

We aim to work extensively on sdgs 1: no poverty as local farmers gets to sell their waste to us through aggregators for extra coins, those around swamps and swampy vegetation invested areas can harvest and dry reeds and other grassy vegetation for us to buy. 

Sdg 12: responsible production and consumption: Mycoboards aim to replace tree based boards and imported non sustainable synthetic boards whose manufacturing and importation leads to increased environmental degradation. Through custom manufacturing, we ensure we produce what is used to fit and less waste is generated. where waste is inevitable, we direct our waste to inua uwezo builders who use these to make building blocks for house skeletom 

Sdg13 climate action: Green board, eliminating carbon credits in manufacturing as well as expensive tree felling cost on environment 

Sdg 11: sustainable cities, through design of decent and affordable housing materials that at endlife has zero pollution effect to the cities and planet.

As a company, we measure our impact based on number of waste straws turned into mycoboards,number of ceiling and construction panel sold as well as extra income generated to the local population involved  aggregation of waste straws.

Inua mycotile is an end to end solution offering affordable and decent housing to the local poor population in kenya while helping tackle increasing challenge of crop waste mismanagement that leads to increased disease outbreaks as well as helping control invasive grass like weeds. Working from kenya wheat growing region, wheat rust is a common problem, most farmers result in pilling wheat straws after harvest which makes it easy for disease to spill over to the next season, alternatively, these are burned down on farm bringing lots of negative effect. Inua mycotile collect wheat straws and other crop dry waste (invansive swamp vegetation) from rural farmers which we use to grow mycelium as panel. These panel are then treated and pressed to form boards which are used in house ceiling, rooms subdivision ,door and furniture making on custom orders. Our boards are cheaper when compared to wood based boards, environmentally friendly to make , lighter and custom sized making it easy and cheap while building. From our pilot products we have established that our product are fire retardant thus fits in rural and slum upgrading where house fire are common , they are acoustic and fit office subdivision as they are noise prove. Our r&D Is finalizing boards fused with life long mosquito retardant biochar to ensure house made with our boards are malaria free. Excess waste and faulty boards from our company are directed to our sister company that use them to make ssbs blocks for hous

Using plant waste to grow mushroom have being in application for centuries, scientifically, it occurs naturally in nature.

However,for the last one decade, the focus have changed and crop waste are being used to grow mycelium panel(mushroom root fibres networks) rather than mushrooms.These panel have had various application with ecovative design in USA leading in industry in furniture ,housing and even coffin production.We are banking on these technology  to  offer our solution.

Unlike ecovative and other players in Europe ,In Africa , there is less if any application of mycelium boards if any. We work in these isolated filled combining both scientific technology with social innovation to offer our solution.While others focus on product sales, we focus both on product and production landscape to ensure our sourcing of raw material, production and products produced have sustainable, economic and circular values to the population around.

To make the next generation of construction boards, based on reviews and requests from our target customers, we are incorporating ,insect physiology and behavior science as well as biochemical fusion of insect retardant phytochemicals from plant extract(biochar)  technologies to ensure what we make fits the exact market need in market .

John mwaniki: c.e.o and founder of the venture, mechanical engineer in training, trained social entrepreneur and former co founder of inua uwezo builder, a social venture that design and construct affordable housing main skeleton using locally available soil that are made into ssbs in our own designed machine.inua mycotile is a break up sister company that concentrate in finishing boards and As the chief innovator am leading product design . 

Kennedy kamau: civil and construction engineer and quality control in our company, with housing background, ken helps in designing product to customer fits and helps in quality control of newly developed products during test phase

 Nathaniel muiru: civil and construction engineer and co founder in inua uwezo builder As an expert in house design he is the link between us and the clients, us and customization ,us and next generation product design. Key to minute details , he helps the design team with computer simulations and test long before we make that product 

James kamau: co founder mechanical engineer in training and lead operation manager of the venture. Ygap trained social entrepreneur with 4 years of experience in business strategy development and product marketing. He brings wealth of experience in research, networks and overall business development 

We are diverse team with a wealth of field, academic and network knowledge to make these venture a success. With the core team being successful social entrepreneurs, we believe these is a base of success as we are brought together by passion and will to make sustainable change in a community and society we grew in. With all member being youths ,they understand the need ,pain point and how an ideal solution should be.

 Inua mycotile collect wheat straws and other crop dry waste (invansive swamp vegetation) from rural farmers which we use to grow mycelium as panel. These panel are then treated and pressed to form boards which are used in house ceiling, rooms subdivision ,door and furniture making on custom orders. Our boards are cheaper when compared to wood based boards, environmentally friendly to make , lighter and custom sized making it easy and cheap while building. From our pilot products we have established that our product are fire retardant thus fits in rural and slum upgrading where house fire are common , they are acoustic and fit office subdivision as they are noise prove. Our r&D Is finalizing boards fused with life long mosquito retardant biochar to ensure house made with our boards are malaria free. 

our main focus customers are real estate construction company who get affordable products that are custom made meaning with the right measurement we are able to reduce wastages as well as offer materials that are fix fit for easy construction, the user of the house enjoy long term benefits of acoustic, fire retardant in cases of fire as well as long term insecticidal and insect repellant properties from our next product in pilot labs.

we reach our customers through b2b models  through chain of civil engineers in our network.

We are for profit social enterprise who make profit capped at 20% total production cost of the material which makes our material 40% cheaper than the available boards but superior in quality when compared to them.

With affordable green housing field being a field of choice for most angel investors in africa ,we are banking on our model and wide scale impact we have from material sourcing to product development to help us gain suitable financing to scale , we have so far raised $5000 for pilots from tony elumelu foundation and sold $2000 worth of material during pilots .

We are for profit social enterprise who make profit capped at 20% total production cost of the material which makes our material 40% cheaper than the available boards but superior in quality when compared to them.

so far we have gotten $ 5000 from tony elumelu foundation as grant and have made sales of $ 2000 from pilot products sales