Elizabeth Nyeko was born in northern Uganda. Because of the civil war, she fled her country as a child. She studied at the University of Oxford. At the beginning of his career, she was working in banking investments in Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers. She has also worked in academic research at the University of Oxford and the Imperial College of London.
Nyeko co-founded Mandulis Energy, a company that built biomass electric grids in northern Uganda. During that time, she noticed that the demand for regular consumers was difficult to predict. This issue caused overproduction of energy, inefficient use of fuels and inflated prices.
Nyeko designed a smart platform that works in the cloud, Modularity Grid. This platform allows operators to track and predict individual electricity consumption. When there is an electricity excess, it is redirected to users who require constant energy.
This system is being tested in the Mandulis network in Uganda. In this area, the rice mill of the town is the one that requires more energy. “If we can deliver the exact amount of electricity to the people who need them and redirect the rest to something that creates value in the rural community, electric microgrids will be viable for low-resource environments,” says Nyeko.
Elizabeth Nyeko now promotes its solution to other suppliers of electric micro-grids. He has also started working with Total and Vinci Energies to extend energy projects throughout Africa. Nyeko believes that, eventually, his solution will also be able to help national power grids in Africa and the world.
