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Smith students join Clark School of Engineering students
to bring clean, safe light to one of the world’s poorest
countries.
Burkina Faso, formerly known as Upper Volta, is one of
the poorest countries in the world. Like many of its West
African neighbors, its population largely consists of
subsistence farmers. Only about 30 percent of adult men —
and only 9 percent of adult women — can read. Many of these
people long for a more prosperous life for themselves and
their children, and education is one of the ways people hope
to better themselves.
But there is a very basic problem standing in the way.
It’s hard to learn to read without light.
Much of rural Burkina Faso lacks basic infrastructure,
including the electricity needed for municipal lighting. A
team from the University of Maryland chapter of Engineers
Without Borders traveled to Dissin, Burkina Faso in January
2007 to install a single, solar-powered lighting system in a
local community center. The system was a success, and the
team wondered if it would be possible to extend this solar
lighting system into other villages.
 Funding would be necessary, of course and the team
thought they had a shot at getting a grant from the
prestigious Lighting Africa competition. Lighting Africa, an
initiative of the World Bank, aims to provide 250 million
people in sub-Saharan Africa with access to low-cost, safe,
reliable lighting that doesn’t depend on fossil fuel by the
year 2030. The World Bank’s grant competition was soliciting
innovative proposals for off-grid lighting solutions that
were sustainable and could be replicated across the
continent.
The Maryland team had a good technical solution. But was
it in fact economically viable? And could it be replicated
in other villages? One of the requirements for entering the
competition was demonstrating the economic benefits and
viability of the team’s lighting solution using a business
plan and financial modeling. Jungho Kim, professor of
mechanical engineering in the A. James Clark School of
Engineering and faculty advisor for the Engineers Without
Borders chapter, reached out to the Smith School for the
business know-how the team needed.
 Enter first-year MBA students Christen Hartnett and Jason
Lee, who spent three weeks in Dissin developing a viable
business plan for the Maryland team. They figured out a
target market, developed a pricing strategy, and helped
design a delivery system. They considered the transition
cost — Burkinans currently use kerosene to fuel their lamps,
which is messy, smelly and bad for your health, but also
cheap. Lee and Hartnett needed to show that solar power
could compete with kerosene on cost, or Burkinans would
never be able to afford it. Lee and Hartnett helped design a
distribution and pricing system that would be competitive
with kerosene.
It wasn’t an easy three weeks, Lee admits. Burkinans
speak French and a variety of tribal languages. Lee speaks
English and a little French. Hartnett speaks English. Even
with the help of a translator, getting around to conduct
user surveys was difficult and sometimes frustrating. “We
had a huge learning curve,” says Lee. Lee and Hartnett also
had to deal with cultural differences and the ferocious heat
of the sub-Saharan climate.
But what both Lee and Hartnett remember are not the
differences but the similarities they noticed between
themselves and these rural Africans, whose daily lives were
so far removed from their own. “People want the same
things,” Lee says. “They have desires for the things that
make life easier and better for themselves and their
families. One of those things is as simple as good light.”
And one of the most amazing experiences, says Hartnett,
happened after the lights came on. “There was one light in
one house, and there were crowds of children underneath the
light, just reading,” says Hartnett.
The team’s solar lighting project was not selected as a
grant recipient from the Lighting Africa competition. But
the Maryland team was convinced by Lee and Hartnett’s
business plan that the project is worth pursuing, and they
plan to launch on a small scale this year. The Smith School
hopes to continue working with the Engineers Without Borders
chapter on other projects.
And Lee and Hartnett are both considering careers that
will combine their MBA skills with projects that make the
world a better place. Because once you’ve brought light into
someone’s life, there’s no going back to an ordinary career.
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