Finalist: Empowering
Interaction Awards
In 2013, a staggering 20% of the global population, or more than one billion people live without electricity. Vast rural areas in Africa and Asia are without power, limiting access to education, health, safety, and social mobility. Access to electricity has an immediate and tangible impact.
In 2013, a staggering 20% of the global population, or more than one billion people live without electricity. Vast rural areas in Africa and Asia are without power, limiting access to education, health, safety, and social mobility. Access to electricity has immediate and tangible impact:
- A survey in Bangladesh revealed that rural electrification could lead to an increase of income in the range of 9% to 30%. This impact is sustained for as long as 8 years.
- A study in the Philippines showed that electricity increases study time by approximately one hour per evening.
- Nearly 40% of the world’s population rely on solid fuel to cook food breathing in toxic smoke that kills nearly two million people a year, most of them women and children.
Simply put, lack of electricity means permanent poverty. The challenge that was posed to us by a national publication was to design a solution that addresses the energy access problem for developing countries. Given the scope of the problem and its severe impact on the well-being and living conditions of such a vast part of the global population, we needed to reach as large and as diverse group of people as possible.
