Out of the Yard, Into Africa

Most Harvard courses teach the traditional way: books, lectures, and a final exam. But the members of Lebônê Solutions, Inc., who met in Engineering Sciences 147: “Idea Translation: Effecting Change through the Arts and Sciences,” had a final project that took them beyond the classroom.

The team members, who are current Harvard students and recent graduates, are looking to implement off-the-grid energy technology that uses the microbial fuel cells in dirt to produce cost-efficient energy that can be brought to the rural and un-powered areas of Africa.

David A. Edwards, the course’s professor, originally assigned a project to artistically light London for the 2012 Olympics. But because of roots and connections in the area, the students decided to light Africa instead. Sierra Leone native David M. Sengeh ’10 says, “I feel it’s a responsibility coming from the less resourceful communities we come from to be able to advocate and implement projects that attempt to solve problems that we experienced.”

“If we don’t do it, who else would?” he adds.

The microbial fuel cell technology Lebônê is using was developed by Peter Girguis, a professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, but the Lebônê team members are some of the first to take it to the field. “They’ve done 99.9 percent of it,” Edwards says. “The Idea Translation Lab has been helpful in getting them from being students in a class to running a not-for-profit.” The group conducted a successful pilot study over the summer in Tanzania, where they worked with local families and experimented with the fuel.

Currently, in most African countries, roughly 95 percent of the population is without access to electricity, according to the 2006 World Bank Millennium Goals Report. “Everybody was happy for it because it’s not like the solutions that they have right now that aren’t cost effective,” Sengeh says, noting that kerosene is prohibitively expensive. Microbial fuel cells can last for ten years, and can be easily replaced by changing the soil.

The group plans to use a $200,000 grant from the World Bank to conduct an 18-month pilot in Namibia, beginning next fall. Sengeh says they hope to develop a final product by the end of that period. According to team member Zoë Sachs-Arellano ’06-’07, the group will partner with the Namibia Connection Youth Network to target people in different villages who will help them distribute the technology to rural areas of the country. “It’s a very exciting project even compared to other organizations and jobs in the sector right now,” she says.

“People here have a lot of resources to make change and I feel like college is a period when we have the time, energy, and opportunity to go out in the field and do it,” Sengeh says. Between now and next fall, the close-knit team will work on ensuring the right technologies are brought to the right locations. And maybe—if they have enough time—they’ll get some time to act like normal college students.