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PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATRINA WITTKAMP (SRESHTA); COURTESY OF LUMINAID (CHILD) Created by Andrea Sreshta (RIGHT) and Anna Stork, the LuminAID has helped thousands of people without access to electricity, like those living in tent cities in Haiti (BELOW). F ood, water, shelter—these are the basic necessities you'd want first if your home were leveled by an earthquake, as was much of the nation of Haiti in January 2010. But what about the countless other essentials that are destroyed in a natural disaster? While Chicago resident Andrea Sreshta was studying at Columbia University's School of Architecture and Planning in 2010, she took part in a class project that challenged students to develop items to help victims of the Haiti earthquake. Sreshta and her partner, Anna Stork, responded with the LuminAID, a lightweight, water- proof, sola r -powered light t hat today is light ing t he darkness for tens of thousands of disaster victims and others without stable access to electricity. W hen Sresht a a nd Stork st a r ted t he project , t hey immediately saw light as an unmet need. "There are nice portable solar lights on the market, but why don't they exist in those situations?" Sreshta asks. "We wanted to design something more easily transported with a lower cost." They hit upon the idea of making the light inflatable. Because the LuminAID folds into a small rectangle when it's not inf lated, large numbers of them can be shipped cheaply. The transparent bubble diffuses the light like a lamp, illuminating a larger area than a f lashlight, and it's inexpensive to manufacture to boot. "It doesn't require a mold like a f lashlight, so we bypassed that investment," Sreshta explains. Most important, the lithium-ion battery charges in seven hours and produces 16 hours of light. T here wa s im mediate dema nd f rom relief orga nizat ions for t he LuminAID, which quickly evolved from a bright idea into a burgeoning small business. Today the company works with the United Nations and a variety of nongovernmental and charitable groups, which distribute the solar lights in more than a dozen countries. (LuminAID also offers retail sales through Amazon.com. Through the Give Light, Get Light program, a light purchased on LuminAID's website helps support its social mission.) As LuminAID grows, Sreshta relies on the business sense she inherited from her parents, who ran a financial services company in Texas while she was growing up. "I would go to my dad a lot for advice that first year about how to st r uct u re t he business," she says, "and now- adays how to manage larger accounts." She also tapped into resources at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, where she enrolled after completing her archi- tecture degree, scoring $25,000 for LuminAID from the school's annual Socia l New Vent u re Cha llenge in 2 012 a nd w inning one of t he t wo $100,000 top prizes in the Clean Energy Challenge. As for t he future, Sresht a a nd Stork a re a lready in t he development stage on other devices they're creating to fulfill the need for portable elec- tricity. "We're [definitely] thinking about products that will work in that [humanitarian] context," she says. "It's nice to put your skills to work to address that problem." luminaid.com MA Bright Idea SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR ANDREA SRESHTA FINDS A NEW WAY TO LIGHT THE DARKNESS FOR DISASTER VICTIMS AROUND THE WORLD. BY JENNIFER DEMERITT "We designed something easy to transport with a low cost." —ANDREA SRESHTA INSPIRATION GENERATION 72 MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM 072_MA_SP_InspirationGeneration_May/June_14.indd 72 4/14/14 9:56 AM