Alex Rose-Innes
George Mtemahanji’s vision of providing low cost, clean energy to rural communities across Africa, had already met with huge success in his country, Tanzania.
This enterprising young man, co-founder of Sun Sweet Solar (at the age of 22), designs and installs solar systems to ensure blackouts, especially in rural areas, would become a thing of the past. For those not on the national grid, it had become a veritable lifesaver with Non-Profit Organisations and even government benefitting from the project. As a result, villages, schools and help centres are able to provide running water in communities where service delivery had been a continuous problem.
The innovation behind this green project had even attracted the likes of Bill Gates and its aim is not only to empower African people, but change the way they think. Until recently, as many as 95% of Africa’s rural areas did not have electricity, but with Sun Sweet’s services, can now buy electricity from their mobile phones to continue operating emergency medical institutions, educational facilities and run their businesses.
In Tanzania, these 100% ecological products had created totally of-the grid villages, eradicating poverty in the process and pioneered sustainable power alternatives. Within a short span of time, almost 30 000 poor African people had benefitted from more than 100 installations in Tanzania as jobs were created and communities, many for the first time ever, had access to proper power and water.
Children do not have to study in the dark anymore; forests do not need to be decimated in order to find firewood to cook food, adequate health services can be provided and clean drinking water is available to all. In the past, farmers lost half of their crop to lack of water and electricity to store their harvest.
With solar systems to drive an entire village, Sun Sweet Solar had cut the high cost of installation of transmission lines which transport electricity from the source to rural communities. Many communities on the African continent are totally dependent on solar energy, at the same time saving the Earth for the next generation. And being able to control their usage, poor communities can afford to see the light – the light this green energy brings.
A mere two years after Sun Sweet Solar was started, the company was chosen by the Africa Leadership Academy as one of the top 12 companies led by young entrepreneurs out of 500 companies across Africa. In 2016, George was invited to speak with Bill Gates at the MTV African Innovators event in South Africa.
George Mtemahanji (2nd from right) with Bill Gates on his right hand and other entrepreneurs at the MTV event in SA.
In 2015, SunSweet was chosen by the Africa Leadership Academy as one of the top 12 companies led by young entrepreneurs out of over 500 companies across Africa. This year our company was invited to speak with Bill Gates at the MTV ‘Bill Gates Meets African Innovators’ event in South Africa. In addition, a key achievement has to be all of the solar systems we have installed and employment places we have created.
But from my point of view, our biggest achievement so far has been the installation of our first RuDEK system at the Michenga Dispensary. RuDEK is a solar system with the ability to meet the energy needs of a healthcare centre in rural communities. This system is part of our social program, which aims to electrify all health centres in rural communities, where 95% of medical centres have no electricity. This program is funded by private individuals, NGOs and government agencies. At the Michenga Dispensary where the solar system was funded by Toni and Hermina Fischer from Switzerland, women giving birth in the dispensary has increased by 40%: 17 children have been born so far with no deaths and people receiving health services have increased by 133%. The 17th child born in August at the dispensary was given my name (George) in my honour, and for me (I was born in a health centre where there was no electricity), this was a very special and emotional achievement. This was exactly what I wanted when I founded SunSweet Solar – to improve people’s lives.
What challenges do you face?
The biggest challenge that we have at this time and I think the challenge facing many young African entrepreneurs, is access to capital. Although youth unemployment is a big problem in Tanzania, our government and our financial sector has no financial support programs for young entrepreneurs, especially during the first years of a start-up. Foreign capital, which seems like a paradox, all goes to non-profit organisations rather than entrepreneurs. But humanitarian aid will never bring millions of Africans to work. Aid will not develop Africa: indeed it will make Africa even more dependent on developed countries.
Other challenges that we need to improve are the clarity of the laws, especially taxation laws. Us young entrepreneurs do not have much experience in taxes and legal documents, Many people are taking advantage of this by making us pay more than usual for legal documents and for taxes. Last year we paid 4 times more in tax than the actual number, according to our revenues. And this money did not go to the state, because on the receipt was not written the extra money.
Another challenge is the African mentality of not believing in young people. Adults and government must give more credit to African youth, because young African people bring freshness into the system and we are the future of this continent. Young people have the capacity to do great things in Africa, just believe in us!
How do you see SunSweet Solar furthering its positive impact across Africa?
I see Sunsweet Solar as one of the leading energy companies in East Africa over the next 5 years. We want to install our Eco-Friendly Solar System and to bring electricity to villages reaching 5,000 people every week in 2021. And if we can achieve this, then we will expand our solutions to other countries in south and central Africa, such as Malawi, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In addition to this we want to bring something new especially for our customers with high incomes. As many know, the world is becoming more and more computerised. In a few years we will have homes with sensors that monitor our health and they will understand before us if we are ill or not, and send our health status to our doctor. We would then integrate these home automation (domotic) systems with our solar systems, to give our customers more and more control over their homes and power systems. Our desire is to continue to innovate Africa, especially in the energy sector.
