Here’s a fact: every night in rural India, 400 million people go without electricity. Without light, shopkeepers have to close up early and lose hours of valuable business. Cooking is difficult. Studying, impossible. Grid electricity shuts down or is nonexistent, and lighting alternatives are too expensive.
About one in five people in the world face the same problem.
A second fact: every day in India, 500,000 people, mainly children, ride their bicycles from outlying rural villages into the city of Kanpur-- ten kilometers there, ten kilometers back.
Bespoke is a solution to the electricity problem that fits the context of rural India.
Bespoke is a simple technology you can attach to a regular bicycle. It lets you ride your bike as normal, but charge double A batteries at the same time. Those batteries can power lamps at night, then be recharged during the next day’s commute. The idea of a pedal-powered generator already exists, but we want to make it less expensive and distribute it better to those without power.
We want to see human power fuel development: sustainably, reliably, and independently.
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