Blog 12: OffGridBox

Supplying rural clean energy and safe, secure drinking water

Company: OffGridBox provides a modular and compact unit designed to offer clean water on a daily basis in remote areas. The company's unit offers an all-in-one system using solar energy to purify water and distribute energy, thereby enabling households, businesses, non-profits, and local governments to promote a sustainable and healthy way of life.

HQ Location & Year Founded: Cambridge, MA / Kigali, Rwanda, 2016

Founder: Jodie Wu, CEO, has over 10 years of experience working in East Africa, renewable energy, and last-mile distribution. Fluent in Swahili, Jodie is an MIT-trained mechanical engineer and a social entrepreneur who sold the first company she founded. She has been an Echoing Green Fellow, TEDGlobal Fellow, D-Lab Scale-Ups Fellow, and C3E International Award Winner.

Funds Raised and VC Investors: $2 million from EEP Africa, Greentown Labs, Ground Squirrel Ventures, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, MassChallenge, MassVentures, Right Side Capital Management, Stichting DOEN, Techstars, Good Energies, et al.

1. Where did the idea for OffGridBox originate?

Our co-founders Davide Bonsignore and Emilliano Cecchini have been in solar technology for over 20 years. The idea of OffGridBox was born when  our founders were tasked with installing a solar system and a water purifying system into six kindergartens in rural South Africa. Installation would take at least three weeks due to vast distances, training labor force, and material availability, making it more difficult to finish the project. They knew there had to be a better solution, so they started to pre-assemble and containerize the equipment, thereby going from a 3-week project to a 3-hour solution, making it perfect for project deployments and disaster relief situations.

1. What is the key problem that OffGridBox intends to solve?

The main problem we address is around water. Two billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water[1]. And 759 million people lack access to basic electricity[2]. We bring a solution that offers clean energy, clean water and connectivity. This allows us to bring information and provide “urban” public services to rural areas. We are now focusing more on water because the water crisis is getting bigger and bigger. People need water purification and treatment and in some cases even desalination.

Our solar powered standard 2mx2mx2m OffGridBox provides energy and clean water for 400 households. We help provide infrastructure for village power and water, as well as powering energy for refugee camps.

Our European-certified technology is becoming more known, and we have deployed in 15 different countries, mostly in Eastern Africa, such as Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania, Somalia, and Rwanda. We sell boxes to partner organizations. such as NGOs and international organizations like the United Nations, but we also work with local and district governments.      

We are now branching out into expanding our product line, to include a miniaturized version of our standard Box. This product will be more affordable and therefore accessible to rural entrepreneurs, schools and health posts.

1. How are you most differentiated as a service?

We are the only ones who do both water and energy services in one solution. We are a technology provider, plus on the ground experience with implementation. We provide a pre-assembled plug-and-play system, plus training, technical assistance, remote monitoring and impact measuring. This way, we are able to support partners anywhere in the world.

1. What are the company’s key accomplishments to date?

Each of our boxes caters to 1,000-5,000 people. Over 40,000 people are served in Rwanda with 20 boxes at the community level, including at health centres. We’ve purified 1 million liters of water in Rwanda alone. In total, 84 boxes are currently deployed worldwide, of which about half are in Eastern Africa. We’ve partnered with International Organizations such as UNDP and UNHCR, with NGOs such as Oxfam and CEFA, and with companies such as Aquatech and Google.

1. What lies ahead in the product plans for OffGridBox?

This year, we will be offering three products:

1. We will sell 50 of our original OffGridBox units in the next year.

2. Our OffGridBox Mini is 1/16th the size of the original container and brings water pumping and purification of the world’s most turbid waters. This will be an important solution in many developing countries as we bring more affordable solutions to our clients. We will be bringing our first generation of 100 units to market this year.

3. We are testing a water module in Italy that allows for purification of wastewater and seawater through reverse osmosis, and we are preparing ourselves for the water crises that lie ahead. This will be hugely valuable and allow us to tackle all types of common water sources.        

1. What are the long-term strategic growth objectives?

We were founded with a mission to help fight climate change and its effects. Now we are looking at a broader scope that includes agro-forestry and we will help bring back life into rural areas. We want to be creators at the nexus for food, water, and energy. Some 700 million people could be displaced by intense water scarcity by 2030. By 2040, roughly 1 in 4 children worldwide will be living in areas of extremely high water stress. Our mission is to start putting a dent in this.

Ron’s Take

The problems of rural poverty in developing countries and off-the-grid regions are at a scale that many of us can barely comprehend. We take for granted access to energy and clean water when billions of people must cope with these challenges every day. OffGridBox has developed a solution that is sustainable, practical, affordable, and effective at making a difference for the communities that they serve. Governments and NGOs must continue to invest in innovative solutions like OffGridBox and their new “Mini” container if they want to continue making real progress toward alleviating water security in an environmentally friendly and inexpensive way. Solutions like these are available and getting better every day. The will to implement them must come alongside this from those with the power and ability to make such change happen.

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[1] https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal6

[2] https://www.seforall.org/goal-7-targets/access