GlobalResolve at Arizona State University

GlobalResolve was established at ASU in 2006 as a social entrepreneurship program designed to enhance the educational experience for interested and qualified ASU students by involving them in semester-long projects that directly improve the lives of underprivileged people, and/or those in under-developed nations of the world. GlobalResolve has developed an ethanol gelfuel facility and associated business in the impoverished rural Ghanaian village of Domeabra. The purpose of the project is to simultaneously address the issues of lack of economic opportunity for the rural poor in Ghana and to alleviate the severe respiratory illnesses that occur due to prolonged exposure to smoke from cooking fires, especially among women and children. This project has been very successful, and has now entered the beginning stages of a commercial venture that will provide employment for rural villagers in Ghana.

The team built and tested an ethanol/gelfuel production facility in Arizona. After completion of testing, the facilty was disassembled and shipped to Africa. A portion of the design team traveled to Ghana in the Fall of 2008, unpacked the system in Domeabra, reassembled and tested the plant, and trained villagers in the operation of the facility.

The gelled ethanol and redesigned stove are being field tested currently in a large private school in Kumasi, Ghana, where it is used to cook 2 meals a day for 600 students. We have partnered with a local NGO (http://www.ceesdghana.org) who is performing the market study and overseeing startup of the production facility to make both fuel and stoves.

We have also developed a lighting system for off-grid applications that generates electricity from waste heat from cooking fires. A startup company has been formed that will start manufacturing the selling the lighting systems in rural Ghana, creating a sustainable economic venture to improve life in the village.

We partner with local universities and NGOs who help us navigate the cultural differences and maximize the collaboration with the villages. It is imperative that our US students and faculty understand the Ghanaian culture before beginning any project. We sponsor study abroad programs with trips to Africa every summer where we stay in local establishments including villages and are immersed in the culture.

We are working with the NGO Center for Energy, the Environment and Sustainable Development (http://www.ceesdghana.org) who are doing market studies for us in Ghana. We are also working with Skysong, an Entrepreneurial Catalyst at ASU to get the business ventures going here and in Ghana. We are happy to offer assistance to anyone working in this field.

We have standardized on a typical Ghanaian stove configuration and adapted our gelled ethanol stove to that model, while at the same time optimizing the heating efficiency to allow financial parity with charcoal cooking.

We are not monitoring air pollution currently, but that is in the plan for the future so we can assess the value of the gel fuel stoves.

Henderson, M., Bekki, J., Doss, A., Tsang, J., Akhavan, O., Creating Supply Chains for New Ventures in Developing Countries, NCIIA Conference, San Fancisco, March 25-27, 2010.
Rogers, B., Pugliese, M., Henderson, M., The Twig Light: Ultra Low-Cost Lighting in Ghana, NCIIA Conference, San Francisco, March 25-27, 2010.
Rogers, B., Henderson, M., Gintz, J., Danielson, S., The Development Of A Gel Fuel Processing System For Use In Rural Ghana, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference, June 2008, Pittsburgh, PA.
Rogers, B, Henderson, M, Sugar, T, Roberts ,C, The Development Of A Water Purification System For Use In West Africa, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference, June 2008, Pittsburgh, PA.
Henderson, M, Rogers, B, The Development Of An Economic Model For Biodiesel Production In Ghana, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference, June 2008, Pittsburgh, PA.
Henderson, M., Rogers, B., Jacobson, D., Sinha, R., GlobalResolve: Social Entrepreneurship Opportunities for Transdisciplinary Global Teams, Proceedings of Harvey Mudd Design Workshop, May 2007, Claremont, CA.

We are new to PCIA and are looking forward to discussing ways we can participate during the conference in Peru in February.