Born to refugee parents from Rwanda, Henri Nyakarundi grew up in Burundi until civil war again forced the family to move on. Relocating to the US, Nyakarundi studied computer science at Georgia State University and by 19 had founded his first start up business.
After graduation he soon realized that a 9-5 was not his calling, and he was an entrepreneur at heart. Over the next 10 years he founded and developed trucking and construction businesses in both the US and Burundi. However, the green sector is his true passion which he has been developing for the past three years, and as of 2013 has returned to Rwanda to startup this company full time called ARED(African Renewal Electricity Distribution) which generates and converts solar energy to electrical energy to charge small batteries like phones,laptops,rechargeable lamps. Recently it was tested as it charged fully 82 mobile phones before the solar re-charged battery ran down completely which if I may say is a very impressive result.
His design has brought him lots of interesting offers as companies have approched him steadily for offers to sell rights to his product but being the humanitarian he is,Henri constantly turns down their offers
His main aim is to empower hence making his device relatively cheap to purchase creating self employment particularly to rural communities.
We need this in Naija too