Greetings from Malawi

Converting a kerosene lamp into a clean, safe solar lantern. It's easy when you know how!

Greetings from Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. Jeremy (our chairman) and I have just spent the day visiting a number of international organisations and government departments here. We've had a massively inspiring time that is shaping our vision: we thought we were ambitious, but some of the people we spoke to have encouraged us to think even bigger.

One meeting in particular stands out. We were discussing our plans for converting kerosene lamps into solar lanterns in Malawi with a British government official. We thought we were being pretty ambitious when we were saying that we ultimately want to convert all the kerosene lamps in Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia into solar lanterns.

He suggested we take it one step further: how about setting our sights on converting all the kerosene lamps in Africa? That's hundreds of millions of kerosene lamps being converted into a clean, reliable and cheap source of energy: one that does not generate carbon dioxide, that does not lead to burns, eyesight problems, accidental poisonings or lung disease, but that does generate a better quality of light for children to learn how to read.

Jeremy and I looked at each other during the meeting: now that's a vision that we like. Will you join us?

Nick Sireau