Introducing Africas first stainless steel stove

[Music]

this world has produced a number of

inventors from different generations

from thomas edson to bill gates

to steve jobs including myself and not

younger

but most of you might be wondering how

and why

before that to be important that we

understand what

inventor is

an inventor is a person or a group of

individuals

who come up with a solution for a

particular problem having said that

let me tell you my story so that we can

be able to

work together and understand why i spoke

that i fall under that category

in 2015 i was only 18

in my high high school days and trying

to finish up my

retwelve and to go home so that

i can go out there abroad and pick any

career

and start my life

i was excited about it

but in that very same year in 2015

zambia was in trouble

because for those of you who follow the

hist of the country

you would remember that we had energy

deficit

and lord shedding some of you might call

it

and not only the household was affected

but also industries and government

institutions

in one way or the other everyone was

affected

and people kept on complaining

about the same problem because eight

hours of blood shedding

was too much

when it comes on the household level in

times of food preparation

you don’t probably prepare your meal on

time or you get laid at work

it was that at very time i was just in

high school

and i didn’t just want to be part of the

people who complained about the same

problem

but i wanted to contribute in one way or

the other

so one of the days as i was in my class

i do something on paper

showed it around my friends in class

outside class including my mentoric

teacher

but no one understood what i had drawn

on paper

this was a stove that would cook

bake fry roast warm

right without using power but at that

time also

i needed materials to build that stove

resources finance it

so i approached my squad administration

so that they could

finance the project

but their response was that it was a bit

expensive and it almost costed me the

same amount as

my school fees so

the project wasn’t supported

it was a small setback i thought within

myself that i can still

do something about it i still need this

because this

is a solution to the problem we’re

facing

so that time i remember one of the days

i was moving in school

and i came across some old scrap metals

from an old locker that was dumped

somewhere

and i picked them up watched the

material

and took it to the school workshop and

started building my stuff

i remember missing my classes for about

a month and three weeks

at that time

we were all preparing though for exams

but after

three a month and three weeks we did

manage to complete the project

and it went on to be exhibited at the

provincial

jet sphere or national fair you might

call it

until it went on to the nationals where

it came out second in the country

after coming back from the national

affair

and writing my exams then i went back

home

the copper build the following year in

2016

i turned into an entrepreneur i started

selling my stoves

for about three months business was good

but something happened a big partnership

landed on me that i had never expected

to come my way

by southern africa stainless steel

development association

in south africa this was to improve the

stove

from mild steel to stainless steel with

high advanced technology so that

it can compete even on the international

market

but that time

i kept on asking myself because there

were a number of challenges that i had

made then

because that same very adjusting road in

school started my bachelor’s

at degrees university in development

studies

that was the first challenge the second

challenge was that

i had never traveled outside the country

and thirdly i was exposed to a new

industry stainless steel industry

that i didn’t know anything about it

and even in my country i don’t pick up a

mentor

would show me the way to go about it

so after about two years in south africa

kept down every summer

travel and we completed the project

which i named the juven stainless stove

which i named after my parents justine

and vincent

after the completion of the stove the

stove was awarded at the international

stainless steel award

and was certified as a world-class

product

making it the first mark of its kind

zambian product

the stainless steel industry

after 2018 of the international

stainless steel awards i came back home

here

with good hopes excited and

right away i came to i signed a 1.2

million deal with the means of youth and

sports so that we can build the first

world-class plant

in zambia so that we can produce the

stoves within and export

unfortunately due to the covey 19 a

number of issues

it didn’t work that was a big setback in

my career

and a lot of hopes

went within me because i had worked

tirelessly

the past three years used personal

resources and a number of

people had hoped this to come

but i looked at the bigger picture

thanks to the mentorship

and to the experience and the exposure

i’d gotten in the stainless steel

industry in south africa

that gave me a courage to go and work on

something more better than what we had

built in south africa

this was a partnership in asia in 2020

the tombstone machinery to work on the

stove that will become the first of its

kind in africa to be part with three

fuels

that’s gas electricity and solid fuel

on one product this took up

about a year and some months in asia and

we did manage to complete the project

but what inspired me to go on further

despite us building on something in

south africa i looked at the gap that

was there in the market

this gap was firstly economic spaces in

homes

mostly we buy stoves where we’re coming

from we buy stoves that are powered by

single source of energy it’s either just

on

electricity or bias on gas or just solid

on fuel

for you to buy all the three space

economic spaces in homes

the cost expenses attached to buying all

the three

and also the energy just convenience of

your the energy that you want

you prefer to use it for so that’s what

led me to build this dove which was

certified and also has been recognized

as the face of its kind in africa

a stainless steel stove that is powered

with gas electricity and solid fuel

it has 12 boats and 12 nuts that allows

you to assemble it

you can dismantle it meaning you can not

only push it in your homes but

you can also take it in outdoors for

example if you’re going camping you can

just break it

and you’re going to use it wherever you

want to go to use it

the stove for myself and the stove

itself

does lead me to a number of awards

like the city micro bank entrepreneur

most resilient youth in zambia

2020 the marathon p awards

outstanding entrepreneur in the u.s

the global student entrepreneurship

award

the ceo to the africa award and the most

prestigious of them all

the african genius award which i was

nominated alongside africa’s richest man

aliko dangote looking at this all

we can learn something from this

i did not go outside gone

seek for a solution to come and solve a

local problem

but i started from where i was

and looked around me and searched for

local materials within me

that would help to solve a problem that

we had

so each one of you that you should look

within yourselves

within where you are your environment

search for materials that you can use

to solve the problems that you are

facing which i

call local solutions for local problems

it starts from there

going forward

i dream of a day

of where we’ll have our own world-class

plant in zambia and

be able to produce the stores for

exports

not only in the region

but across the world impacting lives

and changing lives in the way we lived

we thought even in terms of job creation

and worth creation

for the betterment of the future

thank you

[Music]

you