Math and science are always lamented as not having enough women in them but when we women get involved in science and technology, phenomenal things happen. I’ve mentioned before about life-saving inventions by women you’ve never heard about and most recently featured a girl who developed a computer program that detects breast cancer.
Go big or go home, right?
Well here’s another genius idea from 4 teenagers in Nigeria. Electricity is hard to come by in many parts of their country, so these girls set out to develop a way to create their own power source. From a waste product.
That’s right, from pee.
Duro-Aina Adebola (age 14), Akindele Abiola (age 14), Faleke Oluwatoyin (age 14) and Bello Eniola (age 15) built a generator that will produce 6 hours of electrical power for each liter of urine. To give you an idea of how much urine is needed, the average adult human produces around 2 liters per day. So, every person could at least power their own generator for a day.
The pee-powered generator is far from market ready. There are still some safety hurdles to get around (you can read about the entire technical process here), but this is an incredible start to a potentially life-saving invention. Think about medical care or getting power tools and various equipment to operate during emergency situations.
When I was 14, I don’t think I would have even thought of such an idea, let alone actually build a working model. Quick – somebody at MIT introduce yourself to these ladies…
2 comments
mika
Way to go girls. I hope you can funding on this wonderful idea. Keep up the good work and keep learning.
Sarah Park
Hi Gretchen,
This invention is really great. I hope their government and private sectors will help them for further studies. This will surely help a lot especially those in remote areas where there are electricity shortage.