Kiriti Tea Factory is a beautiful example of tuko pamoja (people coming together). Several years ago, a dozen small-scale tea farmers in Mathioya sub county decided they had enough of the national tea monopolies imposing their terms on small farmers and taking the lion share of the value created. So they came together and build their own tea factory - an extraordinary accomplishment. Hydrobox is proud and happy to supply this beautiful company with power as of January 2022.
Erik Hersman is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of several high social impact tech companies (Ushahidi, iHub, Gearbox, BRCK). In his latest venture (www.gridlesscompute.com), Erik has partnered with Hydrobox on making electricity in rural areas affordable and financially sustainable. Gridless buys Hydrobox' excess electricity as a buyer of last resort and uses it for sustainable crypto mining. This lowers the cost of electricity for consumers and de-risks the energy project investment.
In this episode we follow Lilian Kagoche, customer service manager at Hydrobox. She takes us along to visit a few household customers who explain what access to electricity means to them. Lilian is passionate about raising customer service to the level of "customer care" and "customer delight". We're proud to have her on board.
In this episode, we get to know John Magiro, co-founder and technical director of Hydrobox. John tells us how he got the idea to build his first power station by watching his brother ride his bicycle. At the moment his initial power station is now receiving an upgrade from 15 kilowatt to 533 kilowatt making John a proud man.