Our target community is Malawi, working in collaboration with City University of Seattle.
Based on data found through gapminder, the majority of families living in our target community have 4-7 children living in small, usually two-bedroom, houses. This community relies heavily on the burning of biomass to cook food, and is therefore an excellent community to target for developing solar alternatives.
Through connections with the target community, we have found that regular meals consist largely of: rice, cooked vegetables, tea, beans, poultry, fish, and dark meat.
Many of these foods take an extended amount of time to cook. However, our connections in Malawi have attempted and succeeded in preparing multiple meals! The largest boundary to cross is being able to boil water, however because solar electricity is able to bring water to a boil within an hour, nearly any food type is accessible.
So will this work in Malawi?
A beautiful country with plentiful sunshine makes an ideal environment for solar electricity! The opportunity for ISEC (insulated solar electric cookers) to succeed is perfectly feasible, however it is more a question of IF the ISEC will be used.
As long as the device is affordable, easy to use, and functioning, it should gain attention and daily use. This is the main problem that we tackle with developing new designs: how can we make something that people WANT to use?