SEAS-based start-up looks to light up Africa

Start-up companies around the world are looking at Africa — where 74 percent of the population lives without electricity —as a test market for new, off-the-grid lighting technologies.

Many of these efforts involve wind or solar power. Butone group in Cambridge, Mass., is working to develop fuel cells made from the bacteria that occur in soil or waste.

“You can just literally make energy from dirt,” said Aviva Presser, a graduate student at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. “And there’s a lot of dirt in Africa.”

Ms. Presser is one of the founders of Lebone Solutions, which is being financed by a $200,000 World Bank grant and private investments. Lebone’s idea is a microbial fuel cell, a battery that makes a small amount of energy out of materials like manure, graphite cloth and soil, which are common to African households.

Read the full story in the New York Times