Forget the iwatch and all the cool tech wearable products you enjoy to show off to boost your self- esteem. Your personal source of power is a Little Sun Solar Lamp, a personal solar-powered light that adapts to your daily life, allowing all of us to live a little more sustainably and..…..less tech-savvy. It satisfies some of your needs without depending on electricity and on the same time it benefits the environment and the economy. It is fun, educational and especially sustainable. It is not discriminatory either. Since the device uses solar power, this means it will work for everyone.
Founded in 2012 by installation artist Olafur Eliasson, a man who embodies both Spock’s eloquence and captain Kirk’s ambition to explore new frontiers, and engineer Frederik Ottesen, the Little Sun solar-powered products were developed with the purpose of getting clean, reliable and affordable light to the 1.1 billion people living without electricity in areas of the world known as ‘off-grid’ areas.
What started as an idea to create a small, portable solar lamp for people without electricity in Ethiopia is now a global project that is transforming over a million lives through the awesome power of the sun. Little Sun is much more than a lamp or a phone charger; it is a social business that is connecting the world through sharing the sustainable energy of the sun.
One Little Sun converts 5 hours of sunlight into 10 hours of soft light, or 4 hours of bright light. It can be used flexibly: on a desk for studying; attached to a bike; carried as a torch. And it saves households 90% in fuel costs over 3 years, compared with kerosene. Nevertheless, it facilitates the creation of small businesses to sell the lamp and, by concentrating profits at the point of need, it aims to promote economic growth in regions of the world where electricity is not available, reliable, affordable, or sustainable. Little Sun is light for studying, sharing, cooking, and earning. It is light for life.
Currently Little Sun is available in over 10 African countries, including in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal, and Ghana, as well as in Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, and Japan. As far of April 1 of this year, 439,035 Little Suns worldwide have been distributed. Of those, over 241,730 lamps went to areas without electricity.
Little Suns are sold at a higher price in areas of the world with electricity so that the lamps can be sold in off-grid areas at much lower, locally affordable prices. So when you buy a Little Sun, you are making sure that much-needed solar energy gets to people who need it the most.
I met Olafur Eliasson in Brussels few days ago at a private gathering with folks who could bring new ideas, advices and inputs to the project. He is not the typical artist who turned philanthropist on the way to Damascus. He told me he does not consider himself a philanthropist but an artist who can bring about change in a time when politics and business have lost the public trust. On the other hand, artists in general enjoy a high level of public confidence that needs to be put at good use. Today’s real driver of change is art.
How can you contribute? Buy the lamp on www.littlesun.com.
Here below Olafur Eliasson talking about the impact of art in his own word and how it means to be energazied.
Cover photo: © Franziska Russo. Source http://littlesun.com/media/
