dirt.jpgA competition in Ghana called World Bank's Lighting Africa 2008 Development Marketplace proclaimed a creation by Harvard students and scientists as one of the winners. The technology? It's dirt-powered fuel cell. More specifically called microbial fuel cell (MFC); it could generate electricity from food scraps, soil, and even manure. The competition was organized to address Africa's power problems. Apparently, only 26 percent of our African brothers and sisters get to enjoy the privilege of having electricity. The rest has to rely on kerosene lamps and similar for basic lighting. The situation is definitely the same for many other developing countries in Asia, further stressing the importance of the research.

While microbial fuel cells aren't anything new, the team had to find the right formula to make its technology something suitable to developing regions. While details about the technology weren't given, at least we know that the team who won $200,000 from the contest has formed a startup called Lebônê Solutions which aims to solve Africa's lighting crisis, and would be testing prototypes in Namibia in the future.