Cooling is the hidden crisis affecting nations in tropical areas. As heat waves and temperature records are broken year-on-year, the World Bank estimates that by 2050, work hours lost due to heat may be as high as 12 percent in the worst affected regions of South Asia and West Africa, or 6 percent of annual GDP.
This week, SME speaks to Prof. James Trevelyan, founder of Close Comfort which aims to provide accessible and low-cost cooling solutions.
WHAT’S THE INSPIRATION BEHIND CLOSE COMFORT?
Paul Polak, an entrepreneur who advised the Stanford University D-School headed by Prof. Bernie Roth, a friend of mine, explained that if you plan to improve the world, you need to invent something that’s going to benefit at least a million people. It also has to create businesses for people who are going to distribute it, a commercial venture from the start. He also said it helps if you have experienced the need for it first-hand.
I had experienced the intense heat of summer in Pakistan and India. Sleep was elusive: the air-conditioner would die regularly with routine electricity load shedding. Often in the early hours I lay in 40°C heat, in silent darkness, sweat running down my face, listening for the mosquitoes, waiting for the power to return so that the room air-conditioner would allow me to sleep.
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