If you look at the market for solar lighting in Africa, you’ll be excused for thinking that you’re looking at the mobile phone market some 15 years ago.   Both are leapfrog technologies — neither land lines nor the electrical grid is going to reach much of the continent, so let’s just skip that generation of technology and move to the next one.   Like cellphones, solar lamps are getting cheaper, smaller, better.    Both are life-changing, indispensable.  And the market is enormous.  Today, about 1.5 million people in Africa use solar lamps.  That’s a huge number — but it’s less than 1 percent of the potential market.   A fifth of the world’s population lives without electricity. Another large group of people do have access to electricity, but need an alternative because it is too expensive and power outages are daily events.

[….] 

The unsolved problem for lighting Africa isn’t designing a great lamp.  Great lamps are out there.  It’s designing a great business model.

good:

So You Think You Can Be a Social Entrepreneur? Reality TV Meets the Impact Economy

Read More on GOOD→ 

There is a lot to unpack in this article, but I found this comment and approach to be noteworthy:

“You’re talking about selling ideas to get people to do things, [w]hether it’s buying a product or getting addicted to a show or movie, it’s about an intrinsic motivation, a desire to want to be a part of something. And not being lectured into feeling guilty about not doing something.”