Centennial, CO – Feb. 11, 2019– Arrow Electronics and nonprofit We Care Solar have won a 2019 Edison Award for Solar Suitcase 3.0, a portable solar-powered battery unit that can bring electricity to a remote, off-grid medical clinic all night long.
The Edison Awards, named after Thomas Alva Edison, recognizes and honors the world’s best in innovators and innovations. The Edison Awards will announce gold, silver and bronze award winners at the Edison Awards Gala held Thursday, April 4, 2019 in New York City.
Worldwide, more than one billion people live without electricity – and 300,000 women die in childbirth, often turned away from health centers that lack power.
We Care Solar is a nonprofit that has teamed with Arrow to help vulnerable mothers and infants who live in these remote areas of the world.
After We Care Solar approached Arrow as a possible funding partner, Arrow offered Arrow offered to help improve the company’s groundbreaking Solar Suitcase, a sun-powered, waterproof, portable system that includes medical quality lighting, a fetal monitor, a battery charger, headlamps and cell phone charging for remote health workers to make emergency referrals.
To provide We Care Solar with a lifesaving technology solution, Arrow helped create a lower cost, more powerful design that is now easier to operate, manufacture at scale, and install and operate. Each unit is expected to work for at least five years with minimal maintenance. Extensive field testing is continuing in Uganda, and expanded manufacturing in the U.S. is planned for 2019.
“Having the light changed the lives of the health workers and the patients. It changed everything,” said Maimuna Muye, a Nigerian midwife.
All nominations were reviewed by the Edison Awards Steering Committee and the final ballot sent to an independent judging panel. The judging panel was comprised of more than 3,000 professionals from the fields of product development, design, engineering, science, marketing and education, including professional organizations representing a wide variety of industries and disciplines.
For more information on the 2019 Edison Awards, please visit www.edisonawards.com. Applications for the 2020 awards will open in August 2019.
About Arrow Electronics
Arrow Electronics guides innovation forward for over 150,000 of the world’s leading manufacturers of technology used in homes, business and daily life. With 2017 sales of $26.6 billion, Arrow aggregates electronics and enterprise computing solutions for customers and suppliers in industrial and commercial markets. The company maintains a network of more than 345 locations serving over 80 countries. Learn more at FiveYearsOut.com.
About We Care Solar
We Care Solar is a non-profit 501 (c)(3) organization that promotes safe motherhood and reduces maternal mortality in developing regions by providing health workers with reliable lighting, mobile communication, and medical devices using solar electricity. We Care Solar has served 1.8 million mothers and infants and 3,500 health centers and emergency response teams in 27 developing nations. Learn more at www.wecaresolar.org
About The Edison Awards
Established in 1987, the Edison Awards is a program conducted by Edison Universe, a non-profit 501 (c)(3) organization dedicated to fostering future innovators. For more information about the Edison Awards, please visit www.edisonawards.com
For technical details regarding the solar suitcase, click here