A postpartum hemmorhage treatment device, clean cooking gas made from plastic waste and a wearable newborn baby monitor won the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Innovation Showcase in Nairobi, Kenya. The three were selected from seven finalists, social ventures from throughout Africa that pitched their technological solutions to challenges of sustainable global development. The winners will receive a share of $30,000 in grant awards and technical support to help bring their innovations to market.
The 2024 ASME ISHOW Kenya regional winners are:
- Afya Lead (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) for “Mkanda Salama,” a patented, non-invasive, affordable device designed to address postpartum hemorrhage, a leading cause of maternal mortality globally.
- Megagas Alternative Energy Enterprise Limited (Nairobi, Kenya) for their “Community Kitchens Powered by Renewable Energy,” a program that converts plastic waste into clean cooking gas through a patented process, then distributes it through women entrepreneurs. The community kitchens offer affordable, eco-friendly cooking solutions at (USD) $0.02 per hour and serve as social hubs for low-income households.
- Neosave Technologies Limited (Mbarara, Uganda) for “Autothermo,” a wearable medical device designed for clinicians to continuously monitor sick newborns admitted to care, particularly in regions such as Uganda with limited human resources for health.
“Through the vision and creativity of these talented entrepreneurs and the guidance of expert mentors, ASME ISHOW and IDEA LAB are transforming groundbreaking ideas into market-ready products that improve lives,” ASME Executive Director and CEO Tom Costabile says. “These programs are key components of ASME’s sustainability and climate strategy, aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.”
The 2024 ISHOW cohort will be invited to the annual ISHOW Bootcamp in the winter to receive an extensive and customized design and engineering review by experts curated to guide them as they scale to market. They will also have a chance to earn a second round of seed grants from ASME. They become part of the ISHOW alumni network, an international community of hardware innovators and stakeholders with exclusive access to experts and resources.
ASME ISHOW judges and facilitators include experts in research, sustainability, mechanical engineering and product design, manufacturing, startup financing, supply chain, and business strategy, representing organizations including Gearbox, GlobalX Investments, Kenyatta University, Octavia Carbon, Sun King, Villgro Africa, ZOLA Electric, and several ISHOW alumni. These subject matter experts provide technical and strategic guidance based on ISHOW’s five key pillars: customer/user knowledge, hardware validation, manufacturing optimization, implementation strategy, and impact.
ASME’s hardware accelerator is open to anyone taking physical products that have social and environmental impact to market. Each year, ASME ISHOW matches up to 30 innovators with experts to ensure that the proposed hardware solutions are technologically, environmentally, culturally, and financially sustainable. To date, ISHOW has supported over 230 startups from more than 35 countries. ISHOW alumni have developed affordable devices to address issues including clean combustion, crop threshing, fetal health, food waste prevention, health diagnostics, safe drinking water, and many more that address the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
ISHOW USA will be held virtually July 23-25. ISHOW India winners were announced April 25 in Chennai. Three ventures selected at each event will join the ISHOW 2024 cohort.
Read More: Carbon-Storing Bricks, Refrigerant-Free Food Storage and a Medical Wearable Win ISHOW India
In 2022, ASME launched the IDEA LAB incubator, extending the reach of the ISHOW hardware accelerator platform. With IDEA LAB, ASME moves upstream to aid budding social entrepreneurs in developing and implementing their impactful hardware concepts from the pre-prototype stage. IDEA LAB participants receive assistance and seed grants in bringing their concept to the prototyping stages of product development. Applications for IDEA LAB are open year-round and reviewed on a rolling basis.
ASME is grateful to The Lemelson Foundation for its continued support of the ISHOW with a multi-year strategic investment in the ASME and Engineering for Change ecosystem and to ISHOW implementation partners around the globe. Learn more about ISHOW’s global impact in this dynamic dashboard.
Follow the journeys of ISHOW alumni including GenH, PlenOptika, Himalayan Rocket Stove, SAYeTECH and others here.
This article is based on a press release from ASME ISHOW. ASME is the umbrella organization of which Engineering for Change is a part.
