Three out of ten
households in Mexico suffer from energy poverty, which is equivalent to 11 million Mexican households. This means less access to energy and the internet, putting a strain on the lives of families with less purchasing power. Energy poverty has negative effects on children's physical and mental health, school performance and safety.
In order to address this
problem, the young Mexican Moisés Venegas decided to start an initiative to
provide impoverished communities with energy and internet access in a sustainable
way. This resulted in the creation of ASELUS, a start-up that provides electricity and Wi-Fi to the most disadvantaged areas through a system of batteries, solar panels, and antennae. Thanks to this breakthrough, Venegas is one of the winners of MIT Technology Review in Spanish's Innovators Under 35 Latin America 2020.
ASELUS has created a smart energy and Internet system called ADARA that provides light and power for appliances and Wi-Fi to isolated areas. It also recycles plastic from bottles to create light fixtures for outdoor lighting in unlit communities and creates backpacks with built-in solar panels that allow children to charge their smartphones and laptops so that they can continue with their studies. This situation has become particularly urgent with distance learning being imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
ADARA has batteries that are charged by sunlight and converts mobile data into Wi-Fi using an antenna. Up to eight users can connect to the Internet thanks to ADARA. With this system, off-grid households can also use large household appliances. "There are people who are living in the past because they don't know that there is technology to solve their problems. There are people who are still using candles for light. Technology is the best way to eradicate a number of problems," the Innovator explains.
Venegas already has the ADARA system ready, but he is seeking official approval in order to commercialize it. The creator of ASELUS is looking to mass-produce the system to reduce costs and thus democratize energy and the Internet in Mexico's poorest communities. In addition, he aims to take his products to more Latin American countries facing the same connectivity and energy poverty problems. He also wants to use the Internet of Things (IoT) to monitor the state of the batteries in order to estimate their useful life and prevent them from becoming technological waste.
Manuel del Moral, a professor from the Department of Architecture at the Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico) and member of the Innovators under 35 Latin America 2020 jury, highlights that ASELUS is an "extraordinary and valuable project" that "is helping children in communities to continue studying at night."
