Of all the problems threatening the world today, two loom large. One is the climate crisis. The other is the fact that billions of people lack access to clean water and sanitation. A Houston, Texas-based startup with global ambitions wants to attack both, beginning in the tiny, landlocked African nation of Rwanda.
The startup, called Manna Energy Ltd., has an ingenious idea, some high-flying (literally) founders and the enthusiastic support of, among others, The Coca-Cola Foundation and Ashoka, a nonprofit group that connects social entrepreneurs. The company’s idea, in essence, is this: Collect rainwater, filter it using solar energy and finance the operation with credits generated by reducing global warming pollution.
Manna installs its water-treatment systems at secondary schools and, if all goes according to plan, they will more than pay for themselves.. “It’s the only for-profit model I’ve seen to bring safe drinking water to schools, and it would be pretty remarkable if they can pull it off,” says Paul Faeth, executive director of the Global Water Challenge, a Washington-based business coalition that supports Manna.
The founder of Manna Energy is Ron Garan, a NASA astronaut and aerospace engineer who has logged more than 13 days in space, including three spacewalks, and is preparing for a six-month mission next year. Spearheading the work in Rwanda is Evan Thomas, Manna’s executive vice president, who got the project started as a volunteer back in the early 2000s and since then has worked on sustainable development in Rwanda, Nepal, Mexico and Afghanistan.
Thomas, who is just 26 and also works at NASA, has a PhD in aerospace engineering and bio-astronautics from the University of Colorado. His academic research on life-support systems in space informs his work in Rwanda, he explained when we talked last week by phone.
“We’re trying to keep people alive in Rwanda, just as we try to keep people alive and healthy in space, with air and water and energy,” Thomas says.
Founder Garan, evp Thomas and engineer Jean-Pierre Habanakabize in Rwanda
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