Bright Ideas: Luci
An inflatable, solar-powered lantern that looks good and does good.
MPowerD’s delightfully simple Luci is an inflatable, waterproof, solar-powered lantern consisting of ten LEDs and a single lithium polymer battery.
MPowerD, short for Micro Power Design, is a new solar start-up based in New York City, which developed Luci to reduce energy poverty. According to MPowerD, energy poverty means living with intermittent or no electricity and affects approximately three billion people, almost half the world population.
Unstable electric supply underlies a gamut of issues from health problems caused by inhaling kerosene fumes to women’s safety to financial dependency on foreign aid.
The company originally developed Luci for deployment to people suffering from energy poverty; however, while advertising the new product in the United States, they found a demand for the lanterns at home as well. The little inflatable lights turned out to be a commodity among hikers, campers and great for outdoor parties and in emergencies (anyone remember SoPo after Sandy?).
“When we were trying to raise capital for the company in the U.S. we realized we’ll have to change our perception of how we want to do business, if we want to get Luci to the market where people really need it,” said Charles Andrews, co-founder and CSO. “That’s how we came up with the buy-one, give-one model.”
For their first campaign MPowerD partnered with A New Course, a Seattle based non-profit, so for every Luci bought through their website, one is given to a woman in need in the Eastern Arc of Tanzania or the Rift Valley in Kenya.
In addition to the buy one, give one campaign, MPowerD also started a 60-day Indiegogo campaign back in February called ‘Luci Lights Up the World’ to raise at least $50,000.
Co-founder Jill Van Den Brule explained that by using a crowd-sourcing platform, such as Indiegogo, everyone can see the impact right away.
“The more volume we get more accessible it will be to people around the world,” said Van Den Brule. “We’re trying to spread the word and get Luci out there.” During prototyping and development the co-founders to-be deployed early versions in Haiti and to U.N. camps around the world. One Luci even took a motorcycle trip through South America.
Luci is currently MPowerD’s only product and Jacques-Phillipe Piverger, co-founder and CEO assures it’s all for a good reason.
“Luci itself has such extensive utility and for a start-up, we’ve only been around for a short amount of time,” said Piverger. “It’s important to focus our resources on something specific, so we’re trying to be as focused as possible on our first product to make sure it’s picked up by the market appropriately.”
Luci officially debuted at the 2013 Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas and MPowerD got the market reaction they were hoping for. While still working to deploy as many Lucis as possible, the team is now also working on their next product and Luci add-ons, but that’s all under wraps for now.
Photos courtesy of Micro Power Design
