frequent black house is pretty common in Kenya it's quite common in towns like makindu that are 100 200 kilm away from the capital when I moved there would have several blackouts uh whether it's several times a day or even uh several times a week or even weekl long blackouts that just made it really difficult to do some things that I I thought were based as a mom I thought I'm going to pump a lot of milk and sty I'll just rush to the clinic and get the vaccine but that wasn't really guaranteed in maku my
name is Nora M I am an engineer a mechanical engineer and I run a company called drop access we manufacture solar powered refrigerators and cool chain technologies that are used within the healthcare sector there has been quite a number of people who've come up with alternatives for access to power this the private sector players like companies that are able to fund raise abroad for causes within the African continent they build the case they get the financing then they bring the solutions to these communities but the thing about these Solutions is that they're not all that
entirely reliable these Solutions are provided by 90% foreigners these foreigners possibly get the information from online sources and uh some documented research work how do you how do you do your research I do my research by literally going to the communities to find out what's the actual problem and I do it this way because I had the road Awakening that the research work that is published out there even from some reputable organizations are actually not accurate and it's guiding solution that are coming into the continent and we're getting it all wrong I've seen a lot
of Technologies and solution coming into the Kenyan ecosystem that don't really respect the culture that does not take time to understand what the people really want so I remass myself into that committee to find out like what's the actual problem and what do people want so I started dealing with uh Farmers I started dealing with communities and homes and I discovered that there was demand for cold chain solution solar power coold chain solution so working with Farmers having my own experience with not finding vaccines uh for my child really just gave me the push to
think of bringing in solar Refrigeration that can be used used in the healthcare sector Refrigeration is not something really new it's not something complex you know I understand refrigerator as an engineer and I thought I need to get down as an engineer and design something that fixes all these things and that's just how VX box came to be we built a lot of things from scratch and we built it over a lot of challenges and difficulties and I just kept on pushing at it kept on talking about it insisting that we are going to manufacture
this in Kenya when everybody else was like go manufacture it in China you know China has already figured it out but why are you doing it here we don't do this here because most of our Technologies actually do come from abroad and there's a perception that when it's built in Kenya it won't perform as the ones that are being brought in from abroad and I try to tell them hey we need to do this here so that we get to figure out how does it serve the masi communities or communities in makindu or the communities
in Western Kenya and also how does it adhere to the the layers of what our communities want and I think all that is hard to put into perspective hence that's why people find find it crazy that I do this in Kenya but then I got into this journey of Designing building vaccin box and demonstrating to the world like look we store vaccines this vaccine did not spoil and actually this child who was vaccinated is alive and well and it wasn't compromised in any way I've seen a lot of foreign startups are coming into the into
Kenya to to found companies to build a name for themselves and to have this Pride that I went into the African continent I went into Kenya and fixed their problem I'm bothered by that I want Africa to develop its own Technologies I want Africa to have its own manufacturing uh ecosystem because it creates jobs there a lot of compounding impacts with manufacturing our communities are so deeply layered and cultured moral engineering intertwines all technology with these layers of our community and respect ex it and thinks of the people first and what their culture says and
what and what they want or what what works well for them we should no longer be considered as the Lesser continent so much of the rest of the world thinks that Africa should only consume and that's what we accustomed to but what if we switch the narrative a bit and have technology being imported from Africa to the world we should be on the equal playing field when it comes to engineering and Manufacturing and economies and creating jobs for people that's the Africa to me that I want to see [Music]
