Reaching the Last Mile: Women’s Social and Sustainable Energy Entrepreneurship

In 2013, a team of MIT faculty and students traveled conduct a product evaluation of Solar Sister solar lanterns in western Uganda. They conducted hundreds of surveys with consumers, suppliers, manufacturers and nonprofits to evaluate 11 locally available models. The team assessed solar lanterns from three integrated perspectives: suitability (does a product perform its intended purpose), scalability (can the supply chain effectively reach consumers) and sustainability (is the product used correctly, consistently and continuously over time). Key findings from the product evaluation were that a solar lantern’s ability to charge a cell phone was one of the most crucial features, the number one barrier to adoption was cost and of users surveyed, many lacked confidence in the product based on poor experiences with past solar lanterns.