Last week, Elon Musk unveiled Tesla’s latest development, solar
roofing tiles. As expected, Musk’s latest unveiling has received a lot
of coverage, most hailing this new development and the unification
of Musk’s grand plan of having homes 100% powered by clean
energy.
Most interesting of all was a piece on Bloomberg Newsweek titled No
One Saw Tesla’s Solar Roof Coming.
Not So Fast Bloomberg. Someone did not only see this coming, but
had actually built it. Strauss Energy in Kenya makes Solar Roofing
Tiles. Think a less zannier version of what Musk unveiled. But the
concept is exactemento, minus the camouflage.
Gearbox Executive Director holds a sample of Strauss Energy’s
solar tile as Juliana Rotich speaks when Zuckerberg paid a visit to
the space in August. Strauss Energy is one of the hardware
startups affiliated to Gearbox. ( Photo: Abu Okari)
Strauss Energy resulted from a Masters in Engineering dissertation by
Tony Nyagah, who co-founded the company and is currently the CEO.
The company has been developing the concept in the last three
years, although it was registered in 2007.
They commission their first pilot in March at a primary school in
Murang’a.
However, they have been active on the startup/VC circuit, trying to
raise capital and creating awareness of their product; some of the
competitions they have been taken part in include the Challenge Cup
Festival in Washington DC last year , and the GIST Tech-I Pitch
competition held in Palo Alto during this year’s Global
Entrepreneurship Summit.
Strauss’ solar tiles are 600 millimeters by 500 millimeters, and can
each generate up to 35 watts of power at 100 percent efficiency.
Tesla’s product is zannier(of course), and Musk’s strategy of
combining the product to his electric car vision makes it grander. He
is basically building an ecosystem, which is better strategically in a
scenario where the product could have been targeting a niche within
an already niche market.
The tiles were the first product to be unveiled jointly by Tesla and
Solar Century, which, if Musk gets his way will soon merge.
Strauss works to lighting up a big portion of the Kenya, where only
30% have access to reliable energy, and the rest of the continent.
We @Gio, unaweza nitengezea a prototype ya scarecrow kwa shamba juu sorghum zangu huwa naharvest zikiwa zimepungua sana. If it works well, ntaagizia kadhaa. Ebu niwekee something like a concept note we start from there. Funds si shida. dollar birriyoneya @rollout nitamuona kando akusort.
Hehe si naonanga watu wanaweka tape za cassette that flutter in the wind kupiga makelele kwa birds or have seen some farmers spray some form of ester to the plants to make them unpallatable to birds and is completely safe to the plants and environment
I think that is different. Picture this: am on Ngong road and I need to get to town, the least I can do is go stand on the road side and wait for a matatu. I see one approaching and hail it to stop, it stops but I see it’s full, no seats… nishike chuma ama ningojee mat ingine?
Scenario 2: I am a matatu driver, on say route 111, from town to Nong. It’s a Friday morning, I don’t know how many people are waiting along the roads for a matatu, or how many in the terminus stops. I just drive out hoping to pick random travellers along the road.
What Uber for Matatus will do: provide data to drivers, Matatus operators and passengers. What data you may ask? If am a passenger, I open the app, and it will show all the Matatus plying near me, complete with their registration numbers and how many passengers they have. I can then ‘summon’ my preferred Matatu to pick me up at Adams Arcade. The system notifies the Matatu driver as well, so he’ll know on which stages to pick sure passengers.
This is Business Intelligence to the operators, knowing where their customers are and how many they are.
@Okwonkwo think the matatu industry ia disciplined enough to work like this? Say a route from Githurai 45 to town, Paradiso itumie app inakwambia what time it will be at your stage, say Kasarani. Iache abiria wote wako between 45 and you just to come pick you? And how will they record the number of passengers in the bus? Its just too chaotic to work like that, my thoughts.
And what will stop you hopping into the next mat that stops at your stage?
it is a challenge, and a problem that needs serious thinking to solve. if Saccos buy into the idea, that is a step forward. But it is all about making business decisions with data. And of course, nothing will stop me from hopping into the next mat… but what if I had info at my fingertips? I would make better decisions