Announcement for Total Startupper Project Winners

Dr. Henok WENDIRAD – 30 years MAK Addis Tutors 1st Place

Mak- Addis Tutors (MAT) is an academic initiative that aims to connect students that need an extra support in their education to improve performance or stay on track, with registered tutors via a one-on-one private tuition for a very affordable price.     The list of tutoring services provided by MAT include:

• Pre-Elementary to Pre-College all subjects per demand of client
• Music and Musical Instruments tutoring for all age groups
• Language (French, English, Arabic, Amharic, Oromiffa) for all on demand

The service focuses on matching tutors with students for private tutoring sessions, as well as arranging small group study sessions. Students are encouraged to come prepared with questions and items to discuss.   MAK Addis Tutors has been previously selected for an accelerator programme and received seed funding award by Reach for change Ethiopia, a Swedish NGO working on promoting social entrepreneurship around the world, Local context Ethiopia has recently multiplied its number of universities.  There are currently 35 universities in the country.  What’s more, there is now large emphasis on technical and vocational education; which as greatly increased the enrollment ration exponentially.  Education is the primary focus of the government and has become competitive.  Therefore, students strive for attaining higher grades and parents are making extra efforts to ensure that they are provided with all the necessary support; including tutoring.  At the same time parents are largely concerned about who tutors their children, whether the tutor is qualified or not, whether their children are safe while tutoring and the likes. There are not much information in the market about the tutors and their educational as well as personal backgrounds.

Candidate profile
Dr. Henok Wendirad is Doctor of Veterenary Medicien from Addis Ababa University in 2008.  He has more than 5 years of experience in planning, sales, marketing, and management. He also has more than 18 months experience in tutoring students. Currently he is working full time at Mak-Addis Tutors as a manager, matchmaker, marketer, salesman, graphic designer, networker and also a part time tutor for students who are in need of home tuition through the company.

Biniyam Tesfaye KEBEDE – 31 years WINSOL Solar Charging Products 2nd Place

Winsol seeks to provide solar charger for residents of underdeveloped countries clean, renewable and free sources of energy as well as devices to increase their standards of living.  In Ethiopia, there is a great Expansion of a mobile network, (more than 40 million subscribers) in town and rural area. And rural farming communities are typically not connected to the power grid, only towns and cities are connected.  As a result, they will walk up to 12km to access power and charge their phones. They also often switch off their phone to conserve power, as they cannot charge on a daily base. They can charge up to two times per week, when they go to market.  Having observed these challenges Biniyam designed an affordable solar mobile charger.

• The product is portable solar mobile charger, which convert solar energy to electrical energy. 
• The charger has 3 watt solar panel, and charge controller circuit. 
• The charger can charge many kinds of mobile via its ten in one charging cable.
• It is made to be water proof and basically special design for farmers

Local context Fossil fuels are currently the primary source of energy in most underdeveloped countries. Most citizens have very crude products to meet basic needs and often go without such basic needs as communication and travel long distance to charge  . Only about 20% of the country of Ethiopia is electrified. Our product help the rural community by providing technological solar powered charger and they use Ethiopia’s “13 Months of Sunshine” resource.

Candidate profile Biniyam has obtained his Bachelor degree in Electrical-Electronics Technology, from School of Electrical Engineering at Adama University in 2006 and Masters Degree in Electrical Power Engineering, in 2013 from Defense University, college of Engineering, Debreziet, Ethiopia.

Kaledawit Esmelealem MHRETU – 32 years Kale Electronics Manufacturing 3rd Place

KALE ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURING is a company specializing in LED lighting by solar energy. The company has developed a range of products using: 

• LED Traffic lights powered by solar panels. A pilot project was installed in Bahir Dar city
• LED bulb
• Portable Solar Charger with / without battery (product certification pending)
• KALE Mini Solar Station with a capacity ranging from 0.7W to 5KW
• Solar egg Incubator (up to 120 eggs) 

All these innovations are patented.

KALE ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURING has been awarded many technology related prizes - such as first place winner of the 6th annual National Science - Technology and Innovation Award; obtaining recognition and reward from the city of Bahir Dar .

Local Context
Rural electrification is very low with only 1% in Ethiopia. The objective of KALE ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURING is to offer innovative products that are affordable to almost one million homes in  order to provide them access to “clean” electricity. Electricity is a prerequisite for the development of agriculture, health, access to water and contributes to the economic, cultural and social development.

Candidate Profile
In 2012, Kaledawit Esmelealem Mhretu received a Bachelor of Science  (Computer Science) by correspndacne from the University of Daejeon South Korea, where he also spent one semester as part of an exchange change program. In 2013 , he created the start-up company, KALE ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURING, initially specializing in Software and Hardware development. Moreover, Kaledawit Esmelealem Mhretu is  currently active as an assistant lecturer at the University of Bahir Dar and researcher in the Hardware Design and Development Research Center (a laboratory specialized in printed circuit development).