Akon Lighting Africa

Akon Lighting Africa
Mission statement	Providing Africans with access to electricity
Commercial?	No
Location	Africa
Owner	Akon
Founder	Akon, Samba Bathily, Thione Niang
Country	United States of America
Established	February 2014
Funding	China Jiangsu International Economic And Technical Cooperation Group
Status	Active
Website	AkonLightingAfrica.com

Akon Lighting Africa is a project started in 2014 by former music artist Akon with Samba Bathily and Thione Niang which aims to provide electricity by solar energy in Africa. Their initial technique is to install Solar street lights and small energy systems.

According to Akon, he and Thione Niang grew up in Kaolack Region, Senegal in a town without electricity. In 2013 both decided to help drive Africa’s transformation. Samba Bathily joined them and provided targeted solutions through his company, Solektra INT, which supplies solar-powered equipment. By combining their networks, they launched the project in February 2014. The projects now provides electricity in 14 African countries and employs over 5,000 mainly young people who install and maintain solar equipment.

Since launching in 2014, Akon's group has operations in 11 nations, including Guinea, Senegal, Mali, Niger, Benin and Sierra Leone.

The group announced the launch of the solar academy in Bamako, Mali at the second United Nations Sustainable Energy for All Forum, in New York City. Solar Academy will teach students about using solar panels by which they can light Africa. Samba Bathily told in an interview: "We have the sun and innovative technologies to bring electricity to homes and communities. We now need to consolidate African expertise and that is our objective.".

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Wikipedia