Date : May 27th 2011
Location : Kenya
Title : Saving Kenya’s Villages, the Village Barber can finally use an electric razor on solar optimized technology
Author : who cares
“When a 19 year old Canadian start off her company RT Tech, she had no idea how one of her inventions would drastically change the life of a village barber nor the life of at least a 1000 kenyans in some remote village.
Many parts of Canada have remote areas that are in need of such inventions; however the winter climate, long periods of overcast skies and the elevation of the sun during daylight transit made the invention a bit impractical to implement. So what was the next best destination? Yes, you guessed it. Africa and its sunny skies where one can be guaranteed of at least 11 hours of sunlight each day. The Belgians avoided the sunlight problem altogether and put up wind turbines right out in the sea so as to harness the power of wind.
No one knows for sure how the location was decided, whether though an NGO or through a Kenyan Broker. Heck, the village gets free electricity and the broker gets to look good that there is foreign investment in the technology sector, so yeah why not. And the inventor get funding for its projects, so everyone is happy. Hurray! Power to the arrangement.
After the system was implemented, we met the local barber, known as Mr Barber. He was totally blown away by the solar tracking concept but admitted he knew nothing about it. He was however eager to show us his tool of the trade. An Electric Razor!
What an Electric Razor it was. It had multiple speed controls, could shave a beard in a matter of minutes with a trimming tool and once in a while the electric razor would be used for culling sheep wool. He was the happiest person around and business was booming. Before the arrival of the solar powered electricity generation system, Mr Barber would often complain about using a hand operated manual clipper as it gave him sores fingers and even exposed him to a health hazard. His clients were also not too impressed as they had to wait longer to be served. Now Mr Barber smiles and says “ business is good” and that he is saving up on small profits that he makes to buy more Electric Razors and setup a proper Salon for his clients.
Mr Barber is very thankful to the Canadian Angel because the Govt has not provided electricity to the area for many years despite pleas.
Stumbled across this on the link...Eden Full is the 19-year-old Canadian founder of Roseicollis Technologies, a solar energy start- up that deploys her patent-pending inventions in established and emerging markets. Currently electrifying two villages of 1000 citizens in Kenya, Eden’s SunSaluter is a solar panel tracking system that optimizes energy collection by up to 40 percent for only $10. She began developing her social enterprise when she was 15.