About

Nyota is a blockchain based ecommerce marketplace that works without internet and helps at-risk families and businesses afford renewable energy products. An Amazon for the underbanked, Nyota connects users with energy products like solar panels, solar powered TVs/radios/chargers and biogas cookers with the financing to afford these products. Our platform is powered by blockchain to create identity and enable trust and includes an open market for third-party financial service providers and renewable energy partners to connect with users. Users can pay for their purchases in three ways; using a mobile wallet, applying for micro-loans or requesting remittance via vouchers. With every transaction on the platform users can build credit history helping them to become bankable. The problem we are trying to solve is energy poverty. Energy poverty leaves 1.1 billion people without regular access to electricity and 2.8 billion people relying on harmful cooking sources like charcoal resulting in 1.5 million premature deaths per year. I started Nyota years after a trip I made to Kampala, Uganda where I stayed for a few days. During my trip the city’s lights would go off every other day and during the first night I had an experience that still affects me to this day. It became so dark at night that I couldn’t see any light at all. I couldn’t even see my own hand in front of me. As far as I’m concerned no one should live like that in this day and age.

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