Inventor Brings Affordable Power to Slums

An estimated 60% of Kenya’s capital city’s (Nairobi’s) population live in slums which cover only 5% of the total land area. Apart from the fact that these slum dwellers live in generally deplorable sanitary environments, that most of them do not have access to tapped water, that their environment is crime-ridden, they also have to suffer the indignity of having limited electrical power in a city where electricity should be for all. Those who do have electricity have it illegally while the rest have to find other means of lighting their houses, cooking, powering their radios and charging their all important mobile phones. A Kenyan engineer, Mr. Charles Rioba, would have them know he has good news for them, however; he has invented an energy storage device that can be recharged by solar energy, mechanical cranking or mains electricity. The device is cheaply available to be purchased or to be hired and provides a much safer means of powering slum households while the government looks into means of eradicating slums altogether. The device could mean that children in the slums can now read late at night and that households could have easier access to news via the radio.

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