Three UC Davis staff members, lead by Kurt Kornbluth, director of the Energy Efficiency Center’s Program for International Energy Technology and D-Lab, won first place and $10,000 at the 2013 international Thought for Food Challenge Summit.
Their winning invention is the Henlight, a small solar-powered LED light designed to be placed in chicken coops with the purpose of “sustaining consistent [egg] production and ultimately [improving] the state of food availability for smallholder farms,” said team member Edward Silva. He is coordinator of the Sustainable AgTech Innovation Center at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management.
Kornbluth, who has overseen the Henlight project since its inception in the summer of 2012, has guided the team with his expertise in accelerating low-cost, clean and efficient energy technologies in the markets of emerging countries.
He mentored Silva when the Henlight idea emerged from a study of lighting in rural homes near Zambia.
For more about the Henlight, visit here.
