Funmi Ogundare
A Nigerian and a Ugandan youth innovators are deploying photo voltaic expertise and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to tackle environmental and financial challenges, together with vitality poverty, meals waste and agricultural losses, whereas bettering livelihoods of their communities.
Stanley Anigbogu, the 2025 Commonwealth younger individual of the 12 months, has transformed 600 kilogrammes of discarded plastic bottles right into a neighborhood vitality hub serving internally displaced individuals in Abuja, whereas Shifra Ainomugisha, the 2026 award recipient, is utilizing solar-powered chilly storage, irrigation and AI to assist small holder farmers in Uganda cut back post-harvest losses.
Their initiatives show how youth-led improvements can assist environmental sustainability, strengthen meals safety and create financial alternatives, with the Commonwealth offering platforms to join younger innovators with companions, traders and policymakers.
Anigbogu, who based LightEd in 2020, developed the Lighthouse for Peace mission to tackle vitality challenges on the Durumi camp for internally displaced individuals in Abuja, drawing on his childhood expertise of unreliable electrical energy.
The mission remodeled about 30,000 discarded plastic bottles into helpful infrastructure, together with a neighborhood vitality hub, 30 photo voltaic streetlights and 20 floodlights.
The facility additionally offers charging companies for greater than 250 gadgets weekly, enabling youngsters to examine after sundown, bettering security throughout the neighborhood and offering younger volunteers with alternatives to purchase inexperienced expertise.
“I want to ensure that darkness never limits another child’s ambition,” Anigbogu mentioned.
His initiative combines plastic waste recycling with renewable vitality to tackle environmental considerations and the on a regular basis challenges confronted by displaced households.
Similarly, Ainomugisha’s agricultural intervention emerged from her expertise rising up on her household’s tomato farm in western Uganda, the place important portions of produce had been misplaced earlier than reaching the market.
Concerned concerning the impression of post-harvest losses on her household’s revenue and talent to assist her schooling, she co-founded Solafam Uganda Limited, a woman-led social enterprise that gives technology-driven options to smallholder farmers.
The enterprise deploys solar-powered chilly storage amenities to protect recent produce, whereas photo voltaic irrigation methods assist farmers keep manufacturing throughout dry durations with out counting on costly diesel-powered tools.
It additionally developed LYN AI, a WhatsApp-based agricultural adviser that gives farmers with steerage on planting, pest administration, irrigation, harvesting and market choices.
Through the mixture of renewable vitality and AI, the initiative seeks to cut back meals waste, enhance agricultural productiveness and strengthen farmers’ incomes.
Ainomugisha plans to increase Solafam’s operations into West and Southern Africa, adapting its expertise to the wants of various farming communities.
The Commonwealth youth awards, an initiative of the Commonwealth youth programme, offers a platform for younger innovators to develop and scale their tasks by means of seed funding, visibility and entry to a world community of policymakers, traders, companions and youth organisations.
The recognition has additionally enabled Ainomugisha to convey consideration to the challenges confronted by smallholder farmers and the potential of youth-led innovation to tackle them.
Meanwhile, Anigbogu continues to pursue different technology-driven initiatives alongside his work with LightEd.
He based Artechubs Nigeria to tackle academic challenges by means of expertise and Re-build Inc., a {hardware} analysis, growth and engineering studio targeted on serving to to bridge Africa’s infrastructure hole.
He can also be a member of the 23-person worldwide taskforce shaping the 2026 Commonwealth youth discussion board, scheduled to maintain from November 2 to 4 in Antigua and Barbuda alongside the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
Themed, ‘Investing in Youth Agency: Co-Creating Pathways Towards Shared Prosperity’, the discussion board is anticipated to convey collectively greater than 300 youth delegates from 5 Commonwealth areas.
Anigbogu and Ainomugisha will share their experiences of translating private and neighborhood challenges into sensible options utilizing photo voltaic expertise and AI.
Their suggestions will likely be offered to Commonwealth leaders, with the intention of making certain that younger individuals’s views inform discussions on resilience-building and shared prosperity.
While Anigbogu is demonstrating how discarded plastic will be transformed into renewable-energy infrastructure for susceptible communities, Ainomugisha is displaying how expertise may help farmers protect their harvests and enhance their livelihoods.
