SomLite

Abdishakur Ahmed , Somalia

Abdishakur cofounded SomLite in December 2014 to give people in Somaliland access to cheaper, renewable energy, improving their economic prospects and making communities safer. SomLite has distributed 4,500 solar lanterns and solar home systems to 4,000 households to date, allowing small businesses and school children to work for longer after sunset. Planète d’Entrepreneurs and Abaarso Tech University carried out an impact assessment report to determine the benefits and disadvantages of SomLite's products for families. The report found that customers saved $12.07 per month on average by spending less on lighting and energy. Electricity in Somalia is very expensive, with one kilowatt hour costing five times more than electricity in Kenya and ten times more than the US. The additional light provided by the solar lamps enables small businesses to remain open for at least an hour longer, generating an additional $28.51 income per month on average. 95% of SomLite customers have reported feeling safer from wild animals and potential kerosene burns due to the light provided by SomLite's products. At the One Young World 2017 Bogotá Summit, Abdishakur met Ronan Ferguson, a manager at Accenture who offered specialist energy consulting services to SomLite. Abdishakur plans to use this opportunity to enable SomLite to scale up activities throughout Somaliland and expand their product range into clean cook stoves in the future.