Powerstove Energy - UN Solutions Summit 2018

Solutions Summit is an annual catalytic gathering at UN Headquarters in New York during UN General Assembly high-level week in September. This initiative lifts up and advances the work of exceptional teams who are already developing innovative solutions that address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Powerstove Energy was selected as one of the 10 solutions for Solutions Summit 2018.

Powerstove Energy
Innovator: Okey Esse- Founder
Nigeria

Every year, 4 million people die from illnesses attributable to household air pollution. Black carbon (BC) is the second largest contributor to global warming, and emissions from traditional cooking practices are a significant global source of BC. In Africa alone, 4 million hectares of forests are harvested for cooking-fuel and poor families spend up to a staggering 25% of their income on cooking-fuel each year. To address these issues, Okey Esse developed Powerstove, a smokeless cookstove that burns biomass and converts the heat generated into a micro off-grid electricity power source. This power source can be used to charge phones, power radios, or light LED bulbs using the built-in USB and DC ports, providing a convenient source of electricity in remote areas. Powerstove speeds up cooking times, lowers carbon emissions by 65%, and also produces Goodlife Biomass Pellets from wood, forestry, or agricultural waste. Powerstove is the world's first clean cookstove with a built-in, self-powered, cloud-based remote system for improved monitoring that allows rural women to receive cash payments for their measured use of improved cookstoves and carbon mitigation. In the next 2 years, Powerstove plans to sell more than 482,000 units across Nigeria, benefiting 2,410,000 people and saving households over $122,960,000.

Solutions Summit is co-organized by shift7, UN Foundation, UN Local2030 and Global Innovation Exchange. It involves lightning talks by innovators and entrepreneurs selected through an open, participatory process, as well as in-person accelerator sessions and social media interaction with several acceleration partners helping to scale the work of the solution-makers.

We thank our acceleration partners for their time, guidance and commitment to supporting the innovators, including Accelerate2030, Acumen, Equal Innovation, Equator Prize, Humanitarian Tracker, MIT Solve, Salesforce, SDG Philanthropy Platform, Skoll Foundation, Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), Startup Bootcamp, University of Denver, Unreasonable Group, Walker Impact, World Bank Connect4Climate.

Thank you to the UN Solutions Summit 2018 sponsors for supporting travel for the solution-makers, and event production:
American Institute of Architects, Barclays, Ericsson, Google, Schmidt Ventures, Consensys.

The first Solutions Summit in 2015 immediately followed the adoption of the SDGs by all UN Member States. It showed that people already have extraordinary solutions in progress to our most complex challenges. Today the Solutions Summit format has been adopted around the world for gatherings to help solve local and global challenges.

Twitter: @SDGsolutions
Instagram: @UNsolutionssummit