piece of it to students was the most exciting: seeing their eyes light up when they see amazing things happen in nature.”—KL
Andrea Sreshta and Anna Stork founders of luminaid
Learn more: luminaid.com
P
countries often take electric light for granted. But across the globe, many millions of people live without electricity, depending on candles, kerosene lanterns, gas-guzzling generators or other sources that can be harmful to the environment and human health. And Hurricane Maria’s devastation of Puerto Rico showed just how fragile access to an electric grid can be even in developed countries. Young entrepreneurs A nna Stork a nd Andrea Sreshta are providing an alternative, through their company LuminAID, making durable, affordable solar lanterns well-suited to disaster areas, humanitarian crisis situations, countries lacking electric infrastructure and even outdoor adventurers. “We believe light is a very essential human need,” says Stork. “Light can really provide a level of comfort, allow people to take care of their families, and work more hours so they can make more money.” As architecture graduate students at Columbia University, the duo were inspired to create LuminAID after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. They made the first 50 prototypes by hand and raised money through crowdfunding. Stork had interned at a U.S. Army lab that was investigating how to best heat food in remote locations, piquing her interest in developing technologies to provide energy to people lacking basic infrastructure. Sreshta’s family is from India, and on visits there she experienced firsthand the impacts of frequent outages and lack of electricity. In 2013, Stork and Sreshta won a prestigious award in the Clean Energy Challenge competition for startups in Chicago. They also appeared on the TV reality show Shark Tank and secured investment from billionaire Mark Cuban. Now they are fine-tuning their next offering, a dual solar lantern and cellphone charger. Their distribution innovations include a popular program where people purchasing their own LuminAID lanterns can also buy a lantern for someone in need. They EOPLE IN DEV ELOPED
ANDREA SRESHTA AND ANNA STORK LuminAID
“We believe light is a very essential human need. Light can really provide a level of comfort, allow people to take care of their families, and work more hours so they can make more money.” —Anna Stork partner with organizations on the ground in the countries—now more than 100—where the lanterns are distributed. They recently traveled to Puerto Rico, where more than 10,000 lanterns have been distributed since Hurricane Maria, including through a program with Chicago family foundations and clean energy companies and groups. Sreshta says
that since the recent hurricanes, they’ve worked with more U.S.-based disaster relief organizations and “really saw a huge increase in awareness throughout the U.S…that these types of disasters can happen close to home. People were very interested in starting to prepare and take that more seriously. Hopefully it’s something that will continue to grow as people become more aware.”—KL M A K E IT B E T T E R M ARCH /APR I L 2018 47