Growing up in Uganda, everyone in the village used firewood to cook their food. Although I was fortunate enough not to be required, a lot of my friends would hurry to get home in time to collect firewood to cook their food. The use of firewood is still widespread in East Africa. At school, each student was required to bring two pieces of wood two days a week. The wealthier in the community would use charcoal which requires burning wood to harvest it. At that time, it was normal for everyone to depend on firewood as their main source of energy. And it still is! To this day, both my primary and secondary schools still use firewood to prepare meals for over 1,000 students every day.

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I felt a strong sense of responsibility to change the alarming rates of deforestation and respiratory illness due to indoor pollution. In the last 25 years Uganda has lost over 63% of its forest cover due to heavy reliance on burning of wood. This results in high energy prices and prolonged droughts. While doing research on using biodigesters as a lasting solution to the energy problem in East Africa, I stumbled upon a company in Kenya that builds them - but their prices were much too high for an average East African. This was the problem I wanted to solve. I invited my friend Josh, and together we built an affordable, user-friendly and sustainable biodigester which will be effective in meeting energy needs for the people of East Africa.