Hardware Podcasts

Silicon Savannah: Expanding Access to Clean Cooking Fuel

Over the Air · 11 May 2021 · 29m

What this episode covers

Nick Quintong, CEO and Co-Founder of PayGo Energy, explains how his team developed an IoT smart meter to enable fractional purchases of clean cooking gas in Kenya, displacing dirty fuels like charcoal and kerosene. He details the hardware development journey, noting that while individual components were off-the-shelf, the integration required a custom, tamper-proof device capable of high-precision measurement at high pressure. Quintong shares lessons on using low-fidelity cardboard prototypes to test user interaction and avoid social bias, while emphasizing the critical need to parallel-process value engineering to hit target unit costs for commercial viability.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
PayGo Energy, GE, Kiva
Also
University of Nairobi, Strathmore, Bend, Oregon

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