“From the cold chains that carry vaccines to rural health clinics, to the jobs a connected agricultural sector supports, sustainable cooling solutions are vital.” – Chilling Prospects 2021 Report
Among the urban and rural poor in low- and middle-in-come countries (LMICs), 1.09 billion people were at high risk due to lack of access to cooling in 2021, an increase of 50 million over 2020.1 Addressing this risk is vital to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030.
In LMICs, loss of food and vaccines has serious impact:
A pilot project in Mozambique demonstrated that with access to cooling – in that case we installed solar-powered refrigerators for small entrepreneurs – could change peoples’ lives. Refrigeration enabled the small businesses to preserve food longer, substantially increasing profits, and easily offsetting the cost of the fridges they rented.
But there are several other factors related to the impact of cooling the we wish to address with the ColdBox project:
EssentialTech is developing an efficient, off-grid mobile refrigerator to enable systemic change towards a healthier, economically viable cold chain to support healthcare access needs and small businesses in low resource settings.
The project needs assessment has been fully funded and performed. At this time, the project seeks funding support for prototype development and refinement of refrigeration technology. Please contact us regarding potential philanthropic and investment opportunities.
Participating lab: Laboratory for Functional Inorganic Materials (LFIM)
Project idea originated from Mr. Coll McDougall Hunter from Hunter Global tracking
This project is a collaboration between EssentialTech and SolidarMed.
Images: Adobe, EssnetialTech, ICRC, Wikipedia