Entrepreneur invents incredible backpack that is changing students' lives: 'They have to take the future into their own hands'
In the U.S., there are very few of us who do not have consistent electricity pulsing through our walls, allowing us to read until the hour of our choosing and charge our phones for daily use. What many of us forget is that the ability to work and educate ourselves relies on these basic necessities and that there are still places around the world that do not have the same resources.
Twenty years after experiencing life as a student using only a kerosene lantern at night, Tanzanian entrepreneur Innocent Joseph decided to make it his purpose to help out struggling students with no electricity, according to Good News Network.
Joseph decided to utilize discarded cement bags destined for the landfill, configure them into backpacks, and add a solar panel so students could use it as a light source at night.
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The idea came from one of his university professors whom he saw carry around a solar panel to charge his phone. But instead of acting like a portable charger, the solar panel was sewn into his jacket.
Joseph's backpack design won financial backing from the United Nations Development Programme, specifically the Funguo Innovation Programme. The company, now called Soma Bags, produces 6,000 backpacks a month, has a demand of 13,000 backpacks a month, and employs 85 locals, according to Good News Network.
Before it had government backing, Soma Bags was a one-man operation Joseph started in 2016. Joseph was sewing 80 bags every month and selling them for a mere $4 to $8 in Tanzanian shillings. Now, his operation saves 200,000 cement bags from the landfill every month.
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In 2019, the World Bank reported that only 22% of Tanzania's population had access to electricity and that almost 20% of school-age children were not enrolled because of the lack of access. An invention like Joseph's reduces the barrier to education and increases academic performance throughout a student's educational career.
A representative of the UNDP, Joseph Manirakiza, told CNN: "There is a crop of young people [in Tanzania] who are coming up, and they have realized that they have to take the future into their own hands. Innocent represents a group of young people using their talent to do something meaningful."
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Entrepreneur invents incredible backpack that is changing students' lives: 'They have to take the future into their own hands' first appeared on The Cool Down.
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