well, if we can harness human energy in a way that we can create economic opportunity and low-power electricity, would n't that be a game changing solution ? Watch: Can handmade bicycles change lives ? According to Lighting Africa, a joint World Bank - IFC program developed to increase access to clean sources of energy for lighting, 589 million people in the continent live without access to a public electricity facility. The group says African poor rural households and small businesses pay $10 billion per year for lighting purposes, while communities not connected to the grid spend $4.4 billion annually on kerosene. Looking to address the issue of energy poverty, Hajee, a social entrepreneur with a lot of experience in international development, spent more than a month in Rwanda in 2008, trying to figure out what were the energy needs of the country's off-grid population. What he found out was actually quite basic -LSB- energy needs -RSB-, he says. It's light, it's cooking, it's mobile phone recharging and radio. With help from the World Bank, Hajee co-founded Nuru Energy and in 2009 the company started testing its products in the field. Hajee quickly realized, however, that innovative technology was not enough for the project to be successful in a place like rural Rwanda. His company also needed to adopt a creative approach in the distribution front. We could n't just sell