When God said “Let there be light,” it wasn’t necessarily literal, but here’s a story where the light energy of the sun is literally captured and used in darkness.
In 2010, at Columbia University, a professor asked architecture graduate students Andrea Sreshta and Anna Stork to design a product to assist the post-earthquake relief efforts in Haiti. Consequently, Sreshta and Stork focused their own energy on the need for light in the devastated region 16 miles west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. The students then realized the vast need for portable lights around the world. Their bright idea led to the development of a prototype for the first portable lightweight compact solar light.
Sreshta and Stork, cofounders of Luminaid, created and delivered a variety of sizes of portable solar lights for different uses, needs and applications. According to Luminaid’s Give Light, Get Light program, “there are 1.6 billion people around the world who lack proper access to electricity. Many of these people are forced to rely upon dangerous, toxic, and expensive kerosene lanterns as their primary source of light.”
The compact portable solar lights are especially useful in emergency rescue situations when people get stranded due to effects of tornadoes, hurricanes, tropical storms, snow storms, blizzards, floods, mudslides, and natural disasters of any kind that trap people without light. There are numerous other needs where portable solar lights can be used for humanitarian aide on land, lakes, rivers, sea and air.
They can be used to add security to dark stairways when electricity fails, in the mining industry, for railroad brakeman signals, any place a person wants or needs more light for any reason. General populations can use them for any activity where more light is needed such as roadside assistance, access to circuit breakers, behind computers, behind TV sets and other electronics, closets, utility rooms and more.
In addition, portable solar lights are energy efficient solutions for leisure activities like camping, sailing, mountain hiking and desert travel.
But when faced with any disaster that damages and disrupts energy power grids and circuits creating a power disruption or failure, clearly they will seem like a gift from God.
