Accelerating Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship

Mission. To empower local community members to improve their quality of life through innovation and implementation of low-cost technologies. To be an Innovation Center of Tanzanian students and instructors who merge local experience and technical knowledge into affordable innovation.

About AISE

Accelerating Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship (AISE) is a non-profit dedicated to empowering local community members to improve their quality of life through the innovation and implementation of low-cost technologies. As an innovation center of Tanzanian students and instructors, AISE aims to merge local experience and technical knowledge into affordable innovations. Technologies built at AISE are affordable, comprised of locally available materials, and address a specific social need. Through school and community workshops, AISE supports aspiring entrepreneurs in the creation of their own solutions to community problems. Led by Tanzanian inventor Bernard Kiwia, AISE aims to be a beacon of social innovation and technological empowerment in Arusha, Tanzania and around the globe.

Why do most technologies miss rural Tanzania?

Very few technologies currently address the needs of rural Tanzanian communities. And those that do, often fail to substantially improve quality of life in villages for following reasons.

1. Rural technologies often are designed and manufactured abroad, leaving Tanzanian villagers unable to repair their devices, especially when materials are not locally available.
2. These technologies are not developed with a rich understanding of local needs and resources, often making them irrelevant or impractical. For example, technologies that require electricity are useless for most Tanzanian villagers who do not have access to or cannot afford electricity.
3. Most rural technologies are too expensive for the average villager.

These problems have left an estimated 30 million villagers without access to technology to charge phones, see at night, and harvest their crops. Not only would these villagers stand to benefit from more productive technologies, but so would the Tanzanian economy as a whole.

The AISE Solution

AISE technologies address the aforementioned problems through the development of intermediate technologies that

1. utilize locally available materials,
2. are designed WITH rather than FOR village communities,
3. derive out of village needs and imperative,
4. are inexpensive and affordable for villagers,
5. are able to be repaired locally.

AISE is able to develop these technologies by engaging communities through creative capacity building workshops and providing vital technical support and tools through its innovation center platform.