Kenyan rated among 35 top innovators globally

The 27 year old Kenyan, Mr Evans Wadongo (above) has been honoured as one of the 35 leading innovators globally by the renowned MIT Technology Review magazine. 

In Summary

• Through his organization, Sustainable Development For All (www.sdfa-kenya.org) , Mr Wadongo has distributed thousands of solar lamps to rural villages across Kenya and other African countries, and helped hundreds of women groups set up income projects from the money they would otherwise have spent on kerosene.
• Others on the list are Dmitri Alperovitch, 32. He is the cofounder of the security company CrowdStrike and wants to help cyberattack victims strike back.

Evans Wadongo

By JOSHUA MASINDE
More by this Author

A Kenyan has been recognised among 35 leading innovators by the globally renowned technology magazine, MIT Technology Review.

Mr Evans Wadongo 27, has been recognised for his work in the field of energy and honoured as a humanitarian on the list.

Mr Wadongo grew up in rural western Kenya where he used kerosene lamps for studying. Because of this experience, he invented a simple solar lamp called MwangaBora in 2004, with the aim of improving education for school-going children, improve health, reduce carbon emissions and economically empower rural families.

Through his organization, Sustainable Development For All (www.sdfa-kenya.org) , Mr Wadongo has distributed thousands of solar lamps to rural villages across Kenya and other African countries, and helped hundreds of women groups set up income projects from the money they would otherwise have spent on kerosene.

Others on the list are Dmitri Alperovitch, 32. He is the cofounder of the security company CrowdStrike and wants to help cyberattack victims strike back.

While Vijay Balasubramaniyan was recognised for determining the origin of a phone call cuts fraud, including identity theft. He can detect where a call is coming from by analyzing its audio quality and the noise on the line.

If a call purportedly from one place has the audio signature of a call from the other side of the world, his technology can sound an alert. The company he founded, Pindrop Security, counts several banks and an online brokerage firm as customers.

“Over the years, we’ve had success in choosing women and men whose innovations and companies have been profoundly influential on the direction of human affairs,” says editor in chief and publisher Jason Pontin.

“Previous winners include Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the cofounders of Google; Mark Zuckerberg, the cofounder of Facebook; Jonathan Ive, the chief designer of Apple; and David Karp, the creator of Tumblr.

We’re proud of our selections and the variety of achievements they celebrate, and we’re proud to add Evans to this prestigious list.”

MIT Technology Review is a media company owned by MIT, it produces publications read by millions around the globe, in six languages and on a variety of platforms.