Discovering Pollinate

My first day here we spent a few hours learning more about Pollinate Energy - their story, the story of their founders, their progress to date and their future plans.

You can find out some information here: http://pollinateenergy.org/

But to give you a bit of an idea:

• Pollinate's aim is to eradicate energy poverty in India
• So far they have set out to achieve this aim via distributing solar lanterns in urban slum communities (a differentiating factor compared to other organisations focused on distributing solar lights to rural areas). To date, Pollinate has touched 6000 people and aim to reach 10,000 in the next month or so
• The people they serve live in urban slums and are often considered the 'invisible city makers' - essentially migrants that have come to Bangalore for work generally in the construction industry, living in 'tent cities' often illegally/on land that is not theirs
• The customers buy the products, paying upfront or via installments (usually repaying over a period of 5-6 weeks for the solar light)
• Pollinate distributes via "Pollinators" who are local entrepreneurs that literally visit tent community after tent community with the Pollinate products
• Pollinate is technology agnostic (they don't develop or design the technology, but find the best suited product and distribute)
• Pollinate is currently expanding their products into fuel efficient cookstoves (which we're currently testing with the communities during our time here). The effects of smoke inhalation is one of India's biggest killers (especially for women)
• The focus at the moment is Bangalore, however Pollinate plans to expand to other cities, one at a time, eventually reaching 53 $1m+ cities across India 

One of the tent communities that Pollinate serves and I visited here