Launching EasySolar dropped everything into place for Alexandre Tourre.

Interview: Peter Taylor-Whiffen / Photography: Hickmatu Leigh

The essential ingredients in my career to date have come together without me really noticing, but now I realise that I wouldn’t be where I am today without them. When two friends and I were thinking how we could help tackle the issue of energy access – there are still around 600 million people in the world who  live in the dark when the sun sets, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa – the concept of our company, EasySolar, was no more than a ‘what if’, almost like a classroom project.

Indeed I’ve come to realise I didn’t have a game plan forany of this. My degree from Imperial was in computing, I studied engineering in France, I worked as a financial advisor and went to the US to study public and international affairs. I’ve always learned about things that motivated me and made me passionate at the time. I acquired knowledge and skills without knowing exactly what I’d use them for – but then launching EasySolar, it all dropped into place, the dots connected and everything made sense. I didn’t know it back then, but all the baggage I’ve acquired has been essential in shaping me to do what I’m doing today.

The initial concept for EasySolar was no more than a 'what if' - almost like a classroom project.

EasySolar is tackling the issue of energy access by helping people to unlock access to solar power – currently in Sierra Leone and Liberia, but we want to expand. We distribute small solar kits that provide people with inexpensive access to power and light – so they can run things such as cookers, freezers and phones, but reduce the money they have to spend on them.

These are often people who are ‘unbanked’ – they don’t have savings or access to financial services. Many are already spending 20 per cent of their income on energy but not efficiently or effectively – they’re paying for candles or refuelling a kerosene lamp. And they are disconnected – some have phones, but charging them means giving the battery to someone who runs a motorbike taxi service to take it to the nearest town where someone else may have a diesel generator, and then hoping that the same taxi driver is able to bring it back to you by the end of the day.

Alexandre Tourre (MSc Advanced Computing 2009) is CEO of EasySolar and is winner of Imperial’s Emerging Alumni Leader Award 2024.