Conventional wisdom would suggest that grid
electricity is an essential part of national development. Yet, just as the mobile phone has largely made landlines obsolete, so distributed household solar power has the
potential to bring modern services such as lighting, TV and the Internet to some of the 1 billion people world wide that have no access to the grid.
This talk will look at the role of access to media in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa and the need for applying creative thinking to
complex challenges. It will look at a growing trend of ‘reverse innovation’ where solutions are first adopted in emerging nations that subsequently and disruptively find a market in developed nations.
Simon Bransfield-Garth is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for technology and its use to address some of the world’s most challenging problems. Simon is CEO of Azuri Technologies, a business based in Cambridge UK that combines solar power and mobile phone technology to bring affordable renewable energy some of the 600
million individuals in sub-Saharan Africa that have no access to mains power.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx