As most sub-Saharan African countries witness inadequate power supply and frequent power outages for those who manage to have supply, a young Cameroonian entrepreneur develops a power bike to solve this problem.

Bongajum Lesly is a young entrepreneur whose difficulty accessing adequate electric power during his youthful days, got him thinking and has now developed the Bonga power bike.

The Bonga Power Bike is a bike that transforms mechanical energy generated when one is pedaling into electrical energy and stores it in a battery. This energy is helpful for various domestic uses, including lighting homes, charging phones, and powering energy-saving televisions, to name a few.

Pedaling the bike for 30 minutes is enough to produce electricity that can light seven light bulbs for 12 hours, turn on a fan, power a TV, and charge phones.

Despite the Bonga power bike helping to meet the electrical energy supply in homes, it enables one keep fit while fighting noncommunicable diseases that hit most African countries.

Research has it that over 600 million of the population in sub-Saharan Africa does not have access to safe energy sources for daily use, leading to dependence on harmful energy sources.

And according to Cameroon’s National Development Strategy of 2020-2030, the country aims at producing abundant energy to satisfy industrialization and become an energy exporting country. To this end, “the government will pursue its policy of developing an energy mix based on: (i) hydroelectric power; (ii) photovoltaic power; (iii) gas-based thermal power; and (iv) energy from biomass. With regard specifically to hydroelectric power.”

The paper also states that “the Government will continue to develop power generating facilities through the execution of projects, giving priority to the Public-Private Partnerships approach and independent production of electricity.”

But since Lesly invented the Bonga Power Bike in 2019, there is no news yet of any partnership signed with the government.

Hopefully, to see Lesly’s dream of making life easier, especially for those in rural and local communities, a fruitful partnership will come in to push this dream.