The name Joel Mwale may not be familiar to many people in Kenya, but he has gained quite a fan base internationally.
And not just because he made more than Sh40 million at 19.
Last year, he sold his 60 per cent share in SkyDrop Enterprises —
a rainwater harvesting and purification project that he started at 16 —
to an Israeli-owned firm for $500,000 (Sh42.5 million).
At 16, Mwale changed the lives of more than 5,000 people in a
community in Kitale when he helped them access clean drinking water.
He had contracted dysentery from contaminated water during a
particularly dry season in Kitale. And when lying on his hospital bed
recovering from the very serious bout of diarrhoea, the health risk in
his community sparked an idea.
With savings of about Sh8,000, the knowledge of physics acquired
at Friends School Kamusinga and some help from volunteers, Mwale built a
borehole on some community farmland.
He installed a pump that would allow extraction of the water,
providing clean, drinking water to hundreds of households in his
village.
He was forced to drop out of Friends School since his family was
unable to pay for his tuition. But this did not dampen his spirits.
He set out to find tuition fees and earn a little extra to support his family.
Coincidently, the idea for SkyDrop came to maturation when Mwale was caught in a rainstorm.
“I remember it was in April during one of the heavy rain seasons
in Kitale. I was just walking as the rain poured and happened to spot a
closed yoghurt shop. Next to it was a water tank that was storing the
rainwater from the gutters of the roof.
“I thought to myself: can’t I trap this rainwater, store it in a reservoir, purify it and then sell it to the public?”
After convincing the owner of the yoghurt shop to lease him the
location, Mwale set out to find a purifying machine to filter the
rainwater. He soon discovered that this piece of equipment was quite
expensive.
The next three and half months saw Mwale knock on the doors of local banks and NGOs for funding, but they declined.
He turned to his 20-acre piece of family land, which had been
lying fallow for years. He approached his mother about selling it, an
idea she was initially opposed to. Eventually, however, he convinced
her.
With the proceeds from the sale, Mwale bought a water
purification machine for Sh430,000, and paid for the cost of operation
to produce drinking water.
“We used to harvest rain water and focus on production during wet season. During the dry spells, we would market our product.”
Half a litre of water retailed at Sh17, and a litre at Sh31.
Initially, SkyDrop was only able at sell about 10 bottles a day
as a result of significant competition from already established drinking
water bottlers.
But after persistent campaigns, sales climbed, with the company making Sh25.6 million in profits last year, Mwale said.
He added that he used some of the cash he made to replace the family land he sold to fund his business.
The success of this project and the unfortunate turn of events
that occurred afterwards ultimately led to the creation of SkyDrop
Enterprises.
This is the social enterprise that has earned him global accolades.
In addition to providing clean water to his village, he skillfully
converted the idea into a booming venture by bottling the water for sale
across western Kenya and into Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and South Sudan.
He had also just won a Google award (Zeitgeist Young Minds 2012)
for being one of the Top 10 Brightest Young Minds in the World. The
award saw him spend a lot of time in USA’s Silicon Valley. He spent time
with people like Larry Page, the co-founder and chief executive of
Internet search engine giant Google, and Sir Tim Berners-Lee, best known
for inventing the world wide web.
Mwale is among a crop of young entrepreneurs who have overcome
tremendous odds, and instead of crying foul over the unemployment crisis
in Kenya, have gone the extra mile to create jobs.
Unemployment has gone up progressively from 6.7 per cent in 1978 to 40 per cent today.
He is now on a journey to building an African Google, Apple or
Facebook. With other partners, he has founded Gigavia.com, a company
that he says will likely offer solutions for how institutions can
deliver education materials and also provide a platform for veteran
entrepreneurs to mentor youngsters.
The company has offices in Kenya, South Africa and in Silicon
Valley. It currently employees tens of programmers and administrative
staff.
source: SDE
