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Another solar baking oven installed by STEM Synergy partner and licensee in Ethiopia! Congratulations.

Empowering Communities Through Solar Technology is one of the motivations of STEM Synergy. In collaboration with a dedicated group from Wolaita now living in the U.S., their team has installed its 4th solar-powered bakery in Bitena Town, Dugna Fango Woreda.

These clean energy bakeries are transforming lives, lowering costs, boosting productivity, and creating sustainable jobs for women and youth.

For more than a decade Lytefire has tackled the energy, climate and poverty crisis by spreading sustainable solar tech and training. We’ve been able to create jobs where resources are few, reduce emissions while growing the local economy, and for us this has also brought new hope that yes, people can be empowered, we can do things differently, we can make change possible. At the same time, as an impact company we are always critical and looking to improve - and this is why we are excited to shift from the training approach to the incubation approach. What’s our thinking behind that?

You get what you measure

“The project has trained 100 people in solar…” – It’s great when we read this, but what do we actually know about how many of the trainees actually make use of their training? For us at Lytefire it means asking ourselves how many solar entrepreneurs who trained in running their own sustainable bakery actually run one.

When looking deeper into this, it quickly becomes clear that the number of people trained is not a good indicator of the actual impact.

For us this means two things:

1. We shouldn’t design projects to train the maximum number of people, and
2. We should design projects to support people in their whole impact journey.

We have been running solar training activities with major NGOs, UN organizations and a myriad of locally rooted organizations across Africa and beyond. We know that the success of a solar bakery depends immensely on the local ingenuity and motivation of the entrepreneurs, and that when done right, Lytefire can yield carbon reductions, cost savings and a competitive advantage in the market place by reducing the price of bread or giving entrepreneurs a better margin.

But often the challenges are not related to the product and technology, but rather challenges in the day-to-day operation, the administration, with permits, the workforce, political instability, etc.

Let’s incubate

With the project we are able to launch several new solar bakeries, but we are also able to provide incubation support to already trained groups. In Kenya, we work with Joan Arwa, entrepreneur owner of the Solar Fire Bakery in Kisumu and trainer. She was recently awarded with the Africa Excellence Prize from France.

One such group is the Kormei Bakery in Sego, Kenya. The group was initially trained and equipped on behalf of World Vision. The training showed immediate uptake and the bakery has been running ever since at a high output. As a result, Sego has become a very interesting case study candidate for us. Through incubation we can follow their progress more hands-on, and also help the bakery not get bogged down with administrative, staff or other issues that may arise as the bakery grows and faces new challenges.

As we are in the implementation of this new incubator approach we cannot share yet about the successes and challenges of the entrepreneurs and our program yet – but we can be sure that being closer to our end users and having the resources to support them with incubation is a good thing!

We also welcome other organizations, as well as clients and financiers in the impact industry to shift their project implementation goals to build long-term projects that take responsibility to create impact over time. We also think that shifting from metrics like people trained to jobs created or income generated is an important perspective change.

So, we will soon share more about the outcome of this incubation approach.

Are you interested in solar incubation? Schedule a meeting with us.

All units have safely arrived in Senegal for this project led by Association Adscal, the training with our friend Michel was short but great, Isma and Abou provided fantastic guidance and now the first solar and charcoal tests are starting.

The bakers are working very well with their solar ovens to bake nice baguettes!

Nice baguettes, delicious cookies. The mamma’s are happy and so are we.

La boulangerie solaire Solar Fire Bakery au Kenya s’est vue attribuer le deuxième Prix Afrique Excellence.

Joan Ogwang Arwa et son équipe sont primés ainsi que nous à Lytefire qui l’avons beaucoup soutenue depuis la création il y a 5 ans (déjà !), notamment Eva Wissenz, Urs Riggenbach et Muriel Fuhrer.

Le but de ce prix porté par une association créée en France par Mr Christian Teyssonnière de Gramont, est de mettre en avant des talents et des solutions réellement adaptés au contexte des pays d’Afrique. Il s’agit d’identifier des innovations, des pratiques et des modèles pouvant être mis à l’échelle et qui renforcent l’économie locale de manière soutenable pour les gens et leur environnement. Chacun des trois gagnants reçoit une dotation.

Avec Joan comme boulangère en chef, Cheryl et son équipe d’assistants boulangers et de vendeurs, Joan a récemment obtenu la certification KEBS du Bureau Kenyan de régulation, qui lui donne accès à davantage de marchés, comme les écoles, les hôpitaux, etc.

Joan a récemment ouvert une boutique et l’a repeinte à neuf il y a peu. Grâce au soutien financier du Prix Afrique Excellence, elle pourra investir dans une meilleure solution de transport.

Nous espérons voir de plus en plus de femmes africaines comme Joan gagner leur autonomie avec des projets d’artisanat solaire nourricier.

68 superbes projets ont été proposés cette année et on espère qu’il y en aura encore beaucoup l’année prochaine.

Nous sommes vraiment très heureux de cette reconnaissance.

Le site du Prix Afrique Excellence.

We are happy and honored to start a new project in East Africa with the trust and support of Jansen PrimeSteps Foundation. The foundation is focused on poverty alleviation through entrepreneurship, and with this new project PrimeSteps is going to help us elevate our work and increase our impact in Kenya, and if possible in Uganda as well.

A few years ago, the Foundation already supported the empowerment of women’s groups in Burkina Faso. In this beautiful but vulnerable country, women and youth, in particular, lack livelihood opportunities and access to energy. The project provided several Lytefire solar ovens, and the users received appropriate training. With this new cooperation, the goal is to go further and incubate six small-scale solar businesses in Kenya to be profitable job creators and suppliers of affordable baked goods in their communities.

We will provide our usual training that covers the technical aspects of the technology (use, maintenance, safety) and the basis of entrepreneurship training will cover stock management, accounting, customer acquisition, among the many other topics, to enable each group to succeed as independent entrepreneurs. For the best success of the entrepreneurs, the project will also provide incubation support beyond the initial training, to troubleshoot any entrepreneurial challenges during the startup phase. We believe this incubator approach is more and more the way Lytefire will structure our impact-oriented work.

As an impact company, at Lytefire we are focused on delivering sustainable equipment to create new income opportunities and empower populations in vulnerable countries. Our team offers innovative training programs that help start local businesses or promote the transfer of technological know-how to vocational schools. Every Lytefire installed can protect 651 m² of forest each year from being cut down for fuel. Learn more about our impact here and about our educational work here.