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Botswana’s Hearing Aid Pioneers Are Betting on Solar Power to Go Global
Six years after developing the prototype of a solar-powered hearing aid, Deaftronics, a Botswana-based company, is readying to take its technology global.
- Categories
- Energy, Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Portable Solar Power to the People
Schneider Electric, a global specialist in energy management, is commercialising its solar powered portable LED lamps with mobile phone charger, the Mobiya TS 120S, in order to offer innovative, reliable and affordable products to people living without access to electricity.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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A Light in the Darkness
Some mountainous parts of Mexico are so remote that the electricity grid fails to reach them, let alone the banking system. A five-year-old social enterprise, Iluméxico, hopes to change that. It provides more than 20,000 people with loans to buy low-cost solar panels and batteries, enabling them to switch lights on, watch television and charge mobile phones, sometimes for the first time.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Latin America
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New Tools Deliver Medical Diagnoses, Fast, Cheap and in the Field
Reliable electricity is a rare commodity in some parts of Guinea, which means some traditional medical equipment often is useless. So researchers there are using a new tool to identify Ebola cases: a portable diagnostic machine that fits in a suitcase and runs on a solar battery.
- Categories
- Energy, Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The Most Popular Posts for May : Details, details, details
Looking at the blog posts receiving the most page views in May, it’s clear that our readers also like to sweat the details, as three exceptionally detailed (yet extraordinarily readable) posts topped our readers’ favorites.
- Categories
- Energy
- Tags
- microfinance, solar
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How Rwanda’s Clinics Have Gone Off-Grid and Onto Renewable Energy
Rwanda is located in the poorest region in the world, sub-Saharan Africa. Despite this, it is making advances with off-grid renewable energy solutions for rural areas that could be a model for similar economies.
- Categories
- Energy, Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Technology Billionaire Bill Gates to Double Investment in Clean Energy Projects Over Five Years
Technology billionaire Bill Gates says he’ll plow $2 billion of his own money into breakthrough energy projects that reduce emissions and eschew fossil fuels. The planned investment doubles what Gates already has spent on early-stage energy companies geared to fight climate change, the Financial Times reported Thursday.
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Phones4Power: Using Mobile Phones to Run Micro-Grids in Africa
Kenya-based business SteamaCo is harnessing the power of mobile to bring affordable electricity access to rural, off-grid communities. SteamaCo’s smart technology allows solar micro-grid owners to monitor their performance remotely and capture consumer payments via mobile money platforms, thereby overcoming the traditional challenges of keeping grids working reliably and profitably.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- renewable energy, solar
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