EarthEnable, Incorporated

EarthEnable provides an affordable, clean and healthy flooring solution that improves the lives of people in the developing world who currently have to live on dirt.

Nearly 80% of Rwandans live on dirt floors, which have shown to be a major cause of infectious disease, respiratory illness, malnutrition, and vector-borne diseases. Concrete flooring – the only other viable alternative – is prohibitively expensive at 300+ USD for a 200 square foot home. This problem is not limited to Rwanda. There is substantial unmet need for clean, durable, and affordable floors throughout the developing world, representing a potential market of billions of people.

EarthEnable provides an affordable alternative to dirt floors: locally sourced, earthen floors that are 75% cheaper than a concrete floor. Earthen floors are a proven technology in the United States, where the trade has been refined to make them water-proof, easy to clean, abrasion-resistant, and modern looking. EarthEnable has made this product feasible in Rwanda by a) developing a proprietary process to cost-effectively convert any locally available, unsaturated oil into a drying oil, b) developing a training curriculum that equips masons with the skills to install high-quality earthen floors, and c) developing a distribution model to scale without sacrificing quality.