 |
|
|
|||||
In Sierra Leone, a motorcyclist pulls into a roadside stationnot for gas, but to swap in a fully charged solar-powered battery. Across Nigeria, families flick on solar lanterns, children study after dark, midwives deliver babies, and televisions hum to lifeall without ever connecting to a power grid. This is climate innovation where it matters most. No legacy infrastructure. No hand-wringing. Just necessity, invention, and momentum. Africa isnt waiting for the grid. Its building its own futuresolar-first, mobile-ready, and designed for the realities of life off the map. On a continent where 600 million peopleroughly half its populationhave no or unreliable access to electricity, theres no choice. And no company has scaled that future like d.light. Built for places the grid forgot d.light began in a Stanford classroomthe now-legendary Design for Extreme Affordability course at the d.school, Stanfords design program. Its first product? A solar lamp created for rural Myanmar, durable enough to survive being trampled by a cow. It wasnt made for eco-conscious Americans. But that didnt stop a sample from landing in a Sirius Satellite Radio studio in 2007, where I was hosting The Lazy Environmentalist. At the time, it was novel: a low-cost solar gadget at a moment when green products were attention-grabbing but pricey. But the real story was only just beginning. The rocket ship that stayed off the radar While media attention drifted during the 2008 recession, d.light went heads-down. Ned Tozun, then newly married and fresh out of Stanford, moved to Shenzhen to work directly with Chinese manufacturers. His cofounder, Sam Goldman, relocated to India to launch sales. Together, they were building a venture-backed rocket ship for impactdesigning for durability, scaling a global supply chain, and figuring out how to finance solar for families without access to banks. Seventeen years later, d.light is an overnight success. It now powers over 30 million homes across Africa and has reached around 200 million people in 72 countries. With operations in Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and India, the company employs 1,200 staff and 15,000 local sales agents to reach last-mile customers in rural communities. A grid of their own d.lights products are designed to deliver a grid-like lifestyle, without the grid. The product line includes solar panel kits, batteries, ultra-efficient appliances, and even televisions. Children can study after dark. Families no longer rely on hazardous kerosene. Local economies run longer and safer. Critically, d.light isn’t just a hardware company. It’s also a fintech platform, having extended $638 million in loans to underbanked customers. Its pay-as-you-go financing model has unlocked solar access for millions of low-income households. The numbers tell the story: 91 million school-aged children reached with solar lighting 32 million households powered 40 million tons of CO emissions offset By 2030, their goal is clear: Transform one billion lives. New backing, bigger stage In June, d.light was tapped as a key participant in Nigerias $750 million DARES program, a World Bankfunded initiative to bring solar power to millions of the country’s citizens. The timing couldnt be more relevant. At a moment when clean energy funding for the developing world is at the center of climate negotiationsyet rich nations continue to stalld.light is already moving. Access to low-cost Chinese solar panels has made the economics viable. And Africas entrepreneurial climate is meeting the challenge with urgency and creativity. Between 2015 and 2024, Africas installed solar power capacity jumped from 2.1 gigawatts to 15.4 gigawatts. Thats more than 7x growth in a decade. Electric mobility, without the grid Household power isnt the only thing going off-grid. Mobility is, too. Take MAX, a Nigeria-based electric vehicle company that produces rugged e-motorcycles specifically for the African market. Priced around $2,000 and bundled with lease-to-own financing, MAXs bikes are built for affordability, reliability, and rugged conditions. The company operates battery-swap stations along key commercial routes in Lagos, Nigerias financial and commercial hub, to keep drivers on the move. Last year, MAX partnered with Energicity, a venture-backed startup building solar-powered minigrids across West Africa. The result: a fully solar, zero-carbon mobility systemlocally designed, locally powered, and built without ever touching a legacy utility. The rollout began in Sierra Leone, where MAX riders now recharge their vehicles using Energicitys solar stations. The vision is bold: Let clean energy flow through every part of the economy, from household lighting to logistics. The future isnt waiting Africas energy future wont resemble Europes or Americas. Instead, its turning its infrastructure liabilities into an advantage. By solving for affordability, decentralization, and local resilience, companies like d.light, MAX, and Energicity are proving that clean energy innovation can thrive anywhere. It often starts where the need is greatest. Last November, d.lights Ned was named to the Time100 Climate list, honoring the leaders driving real business action on climate. He joined me on the Supercool podcast to talk about what it takes to build a global climate tech company from the ground up, and why Africa may hold the blueprint for how clean energy scales next. Our job is to make solar accessible to everyone, Ned told me. Not in the future. Right now. Josh Dorfman is the CEO of Supercool.
Category:
E-Commerce
Consultants, advisors, and boards are consistently giving nonprofits the same singular advice in 2025: Diversify fundraising sources. Why? Because the new administrations reduced appetite for federal funding has created challenges ranging from significant budget cuts to threats to organizational survival for nearly all nonprofits. When funding sources are concentrated rather than diversified, this creates disproportional riskand those risks have become reality this year. And yet, the generic advice to diversify fundraising often draws eye rolls from experienced executive directorsand rightfully so. Fundraising concentration is a natural and rational reaction to resource constraints, something that the majority of nonprofits, forced to operate on a budget of approximately 20% of revenue, have to deal with this year. After all, one donor that gives $100,000 annually is easier to manage than 1,000 donors each giving $100 a year. But if that big donor goes away, nonprofits are left scrambling to make up the difference, and the changes in the funding landscape increase the chances of this occurring. Maintaining relationships with those smaller-scale donors is more important than ever. But nonprofits simply dont have the human capital to engage with that volume of donors in the personalized ways that drive sustained relationships. The management of thousands of smaller donors requires autonomous software and automation that many nonprofits lack. Legacy automation has limits Software that nonprofits have historically used to power automation has had mixed success. Research shows that nonprofits that build integrated systems to support a more coherent donor experience at scale see higher revenue growth. In fact, organizations with fully integrated systems achieve 34% higher donor retention rates compared to those using patchwork solutions. However, automation software has its limits. While sending automated emails to thousands allows the nonprofit to reach a wide audience, theres a good chance some of those contacted have given recently. The nonprofit risks alienating recent donors by asking them to contribute again. When automation lacks an understanding of nuance, it can inadvertently weaken donor relationships. Whats more, software requires work to deliver value. Make no mistake, the value it provides is many multiples of the work input, but for resource-constrained nonprofits, thats a theoretical argument. If an organization doesnt have the resources to centralize data, integrate systems, train users, and execute software workflows, then it doesnt matter how high the return on that investment might be. The solution? Removing the work entirely with semi-autonomous tools that take the lead, leaving the humans to focus on more tactical, strategic work. The power of agentic AI With AIs widespread availability, options may seem endless, but not all tools meet nonprofits unique needs. For example, ChatGPT may be able to help draft a social media post or email, but it cant dive into an organizations data and proactively execute workflows, manage donor communications, or surface unique funding insights. AI-powered workflowscalled AI agentscan now handle executive-level tasks with various degrees of independence. For example, a semi-autonomous AI fundraising coach could be available 24/7 to answer questions, offer guidance, and help strengthen fundraiser programs. A fully autonomous AI agent might manage relationships with small donors at scale, providing each donor with personalized attention that rivals the high-touch service currently reserved for major donors. These AI tools dont assist; they act. Agentic AI constantly surfaces insights, identifies patterns, and executes routine tasks, all with minimal human intervention, scaling expansion in a way that traditional software cannot, while delivering an exponential return. When it comes to finding new funding sources, no stone can be left unturnedbut its simply not feasible for a small team to do it all. Agentic AI can take on the labor-intensive, repetitive tasks like scanning, filtering, and organizing opportunities so that staff can focus on what matters most: building relationships, tailoring strategy, and turning insights into impact. Specifically, AI agents work directly with data and bypass traditional software user interfaces, meaning they only interact with humans when necessary. They amplify nonprofit capacity rather than deplete it, meaning more fundraising and case working capacity for the humans at the core of the organization. Final thoughts Giving in the U.S. reached roughly $557 billion in 2023. Yet that figure barely scratches the surface of what’s needed to address global existential challenges like climate change, world hunger, and poverty, which would require an estimated $9.8 trillion. Reaching that scale demands bold funding diversification strategies, and that level of efficiency and scale simply isnt possible without agentic AI. AIs capabilities create a self-reinforcing ecosystem: The more impact thats delivered, the more it gets communicated. The more effectively it’s communicated, the more funding is attracted to deepen that impact. The tools are here. The data exists. The infrastructure is in place. Thats the future were building towardnot just automation, but acceleration. Scott Brighton is CEO of Bonterra.
Category:
E-Commerce
Entrepreneurs and prospective business owners looking for ways to finance their budding companies often run into a problem: Their personal credit scores are lowwhich makes it difficult to access the loans they may need to lease a storefront or buy equipment. A solution may be on the way. Fintech company Nav is launching new features to its signature credit card to help entrepreneurs build their personal and business credit simultaneously. The cardcalled the Nav Prime Cardis designed to help small-business owners get their operations off the ground. Many of those entrepreneurs rely on their personal credit, at the very early stages, to get those operations going. As such, its a product designed for Main Street small businesses rather than for startups or those seeking venture capital or investor financing. The Nav Prime Card itself launched in 2023, while the features that allow for simultaneous credit-building (which are optional) will be launching this summer. In effect, the Nav Prime Card helps those small-business owners build their own credit scores and the credit profile of their businesses at the same time, and theres nothing else like it on the market, says Navs CEO and cofounder Levi King. A credit product born of small business experience The whole thing was born from my experience as a small-business owner. I started out fixing electric signs, King says. He recalls the setbacks he encountered while trying to acquire equipment for his companysuch as a truckdue to his business’s thin credit profile, not to mention his personal credit score not quite cutting it for lenders. So, the idea was hatched to help small-business owners in similar situations get access to the credit they need, and to boost their personal and business credit profiles. When you start a business, the credit bureaus have a record that you exist, but youll appear high risk because youre brand new and have no credit history, he says. So, Nav developed the Prime Card, creating something that didnt yet exist, and in sort of a gray area that many other fintech companies werent paying attention to. I could see the opportunity before other people, King says, referring to his days operating an electrical sign business. If youre in Silicon Valley, you get an MBA at Stanford; youre not looking at small businesses. My background as a small-business owner helped me see a future that others couldnt. A big potential impact Theres a large potential pool of customers, too, who could be interested. Nav cites data that shows almost 70% of small-business owners have a credit score below 670. And people are starting businesses like never beforethe most recent Census Bureau data shows that almost 5.5 million new businesses were launched in the U.S. during 2023, which is an increase of almost 57% from 2019. So far, King says that the people who have tried the card love it. Investors love it, too. Randy Komisar, a member of Nav’s board of directorsand a Silicon Valley heavyweight who founded Claris and TiVo, and was a former CEO at LucasArts Entertainment and Crystal Dynamicssays that Kings vision presents a big opportunity and solves a real problem for small businesses. I want to use the power and resources available to me to try and solve this problem: How can we make the small business sector stronger and more viable, and use technology to help? Komisar says. When Levi came to me with his idea, I saw it as an opportunity to have a similar impact to Intuitfor what Intuit did for bookkeeping. While its unlikely that Nav will grow to the mammoth scale of a company like Intuit, Komisar believes the companys future is bright, as it aims to address real problems for small-business owners. Im very enthusiastic about a plan that uses credit information to allow small businesses to manage their growth and sustainability in a way that theyre ill-equipped to do with the tools today, he says.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||