Country of Residence
Kenya
Age
19
Project title
KilowattX
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
KilowattX is a project that empowers underserved communities in Kenya to access and monitor clean energy.The platform automatically connects users with technicians for repairs, enables fractional investments in solar companies, and traces individual energy contributions to aggregate verified carbon credits sold to corporate buyers, rewarding users for their sustainable impact.The projects involves use of AI, blockchain and smart contracts technology to deliver high quality reliable service.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
https://douglasmwebi.vercel.app/
Project Category
My project is a brand new / emerging idea
Project Stage
Scaling (We’re expanding impact to new locations or in new and innovative ways)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
What made me to come up with the idea that let me to develop KilowattX was the experience I once had during a visit to a small rural clinic in my area of which the owner had invested his savings in some solar system to keep vaccines cold during blackouts. But when the inverter failed abruptly, he was stranded and couldn't access and trust a technician instantly to repair . After I examined, i found that barrier wasn’t a lack of solar technology; it was a profound lack instant access channel,assurance, trust and transparency. Everyday people and small businesses are being locked out of reliable energy and financial benefits because the energy ecosystem opaque and fragmented and people produce clean energy which is invisible and overlooked in their carbon credits global contribution I then researched and found that by combining IoT smart metering with blockchain, I could build an immutable, transparent layer for energy. I could verify every kilowatt, automate secure escrow payments for vetted technicians, and aggregate micro-contributions into real carbon credits that actually reward the local users, not just large corporations. Literally that`s how I was inspired to develop KilowattX. I knew that by turning clean energy into a verifiable, tradeable asset, I could finally make reliable power accessible, affordable, and empowering for the communities that need it most.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
In Kenya, over 60% of the population faces energy access challenges but the crisis isn't just a lack of power; it’s a profound lack of proper channel,trust and transparency. Mostly families and small businesses rely on expensive, polluting diesel generators to obtain energy and for those who use solar for energy, face opaque billing, unpredictable outages, and a fragmented maintenance market where unverified technicians overcharge and scum them. On top of that,the clean energy these communities generate is invisible to the global carbon market and their contrinution is not recognized or rewarded. Verification costs are too high for micro-generators, meaning billions in climate finance bypass the very people driving the energy transition. This matters deeply to me because I’ve seen local clinics and schools wasting money on inefficient energy, trapping them in financial crushes and inconvenience and yet there is abundant sunlight, but lack the channel and infrastructure to monetize it fairly. My project "KilowattX" solves this. By combining IoT smart metering with blockchain, it will help turn clean energy from a mere utility into a verifiable, tradeable asset.It will not be only bringing light to dark rooms; but at the same time, it will be building the financial streams that allow overlooked people gain and earn.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
Our project solves critical Africa’s energy access,utilization, trust and monetization challege through use of unified IoT and blockchain technology. Our primary objectives is to realize transparency and enforce it ,obtain value from energy and make clean energy reliable through the platform features below in the live KilowattX app. 1.KilowattX Care:This help to eliminate the risk of unverified technicians. Users makes a repair request via the app. Verified onbordedTechnicians who have passed strict KYC and admin review before accessing the job board are automattically assigned based on location and skills. Payments are locked in a blockchain escrow and only released to the technician`s account once the customer verifies and approves the repair via photo proof and IoT meter data. 2.The Carbon Vault feature helps in clean energy monetization: Micro-generators are locked out of the carbon market due to high verification costs.Our tamper-proof IoT meters automatically track household solar generation on-chain. We aggregate this micro-data into verified carbon credits (aligned with Verra/Gold Standard methodologies) sold to corporate ESG buyers. Crucially, 75% of the revenue is returned directly to users as "Energy Cash," redeemable for utility top-ups or cash. 3.B2B Bulk Buy feature for Affordability: We have onboard 102+ verified solar installers in a collaboration hub. By pooling their purchasing power, small installers unlock wholesale pricing on panels and inverters, directly lowering hardware deployment costs for end-users. By anchoring every transaction—from a $20 inverter repair to a carbon credit sale—in immutable, IoT-verified data, KilowattX makes energy repairs trustworthy, hardware affordable, and climate finance accessible to the everyday African.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
So far,I am proud to note that the KilowattX app is already a live prototype at :https://kilowatx-1-nine.vercel.app and I involved a hardware engineer to help in hardware part like IoT and metering. Together. we've already reached 500 onboarded users, including electrical engineers actively stress-testing the system, and onboarded 102 verified solar companies into our collaboration hub . This is a proof that both the demand side and supply side see value in what we're building. On-platform, we are projecting to have tracked and verified approximately 1,200 kWh of real solar generation in the next 12 months provided we get appropriate patners and support . The deeper impact is trust infrastructure: households get transparent, tamper-proof billing instead of opaque estimates; solar providers get guaranteed, verifiable revenue and access to fractional investment; and off-grid communities get a pathway to affordable, prepaid clean energy via USSD, for those in humble background,no smartphone required. At scale, impact looks like measurable kWh transacted transparently across counties, solar providers de-risked enough to expand into underserved areas, and thousands of households moved from unreliable, cash-based energy access to a trackable digital one . We have started the impact from Kenya and in the future we are projecting to expand to East Africa.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
Most existing solutions to Africa's energy-billing problem stop at one layer: pay-as-you-go solar kits digitize payments, or mini-grid platforms digitize metering but none of them turn the energy itself into something verifiable and tradeable. Our project KilowattX is different because we don't treat blockchain as a marketing layer on top of solar; we use it as the trust infrastructure underneath it. Every unit of generated energy is tracked, verified, and turned into a transparent, tamper-proof record — closing the exact gap (opaque billing, high non-technical losses) that makes clean energy adoption feel untrustworthy to both households and providers. Secondly, we're applying an existing idea "fractional asset ownership " to a context it's rarely used in: solar infrastructure. Our Energy NFTs feature let solar providers unlock fractional investment and guaranteed revenue instead of waiting on slow, informal financing, while investors get a liquid, verifiable stake in real clean-energy generation. Thirdly, we designed the project to enhance how Kenya actually pays and connects, not how Silicon Valley assumes it does.The KilowattX platform is built mobile-money-native from day one — with M-Pesa/Daraja escrow as a built-in fallback — and we're designing USSD-based access so off-grid users without smartphones aren't excluded, which most decentralized-energy platforms overlook entirely. Finally, our we mirrors the problem's real shape: blockchain/software engineering, electrical/IoT hardware, and academic research under one roof — so the innovation isn't just software, it's software built to survive contact with real meters, real regulators, and real users hence solving the intended problem
How many people are on your team?
3
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
We are a team of 3. 1.Douglas Mwebi (CEO & Founder) -I lead the product vision, Web3 architecture, and strategic partnerships. 2. Raphael John (Chief Hardware/IoT Officer) -Helps me in hardware prototyping, IoT integration, and community outreach. 3.Teresa Kwamboka (Chief Researcher)- She helps in researching and obtain information from the ground. The three of us collaborate jointly in skills contribution, strategic decisions and future planning with me being the leader and coordinator.
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
Over the next 12 months, our priority is converting KilowattX from a validated live prototype into a full commercial pilot. On the product side, we've done IoT smart-meter integration, complete a full smart-contract security audit, and we are looking to scale the mobile/web platform to handle real transaction volume reliably and confidently. On the regulatory side, we're finalizing a written legal opinion confirming how our Energy NFT fractional-ownership model is structured under Kenya's applicable exemptions, and formalizing our position with the Central Bank of Kenya on the stablecoin/virtual-asset dimension of payments — with M-Pesa/Daraja escrow as our compliant fallback throughout. On partnerships, we're moving our exploratory conversations with Kenya Power (KPLC) toward a formal pilot API integration for prepaid token purchases, and converting early NGO engagement into signed agreements to bring the prepaid, USSD-based access model to off-grid communities who don't have smartphones. Commercially, we'll grow beyond our current 500 users and 102 solar-company partners toward measurable kWh transacted at scale, while laying the regulatory and technical groundwork in Kenya first, before expanding into Tanzania and Uganda in Phase 2.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
We treat outreach as part of the product, not separate from it. On the supply side, we've already onboarded 102 real verified solar companies into a collaboration and bulk-buy hub, which gives providers a direct incentive to bring their own networks and customers into the platform. On the demand side, electrical engineers have been actively testing and giving feedback on the system, which we use both to improve the product and to build a base of technically credible early advocates. We also invloving our existing local community relevant parties to help us run hands-on demos and explain the problem (opaque billing, energy poverty) in terms people already feel, not abstract blockchain language. This will help people with shallow knowledge to help the solution and product beter. Going forward, our USSD-based access design is itself an outreach tool: it lets off-grid users and NGOs engage with KilowattX without needing a smartphone, a wallet, or prior crypto knowledge, lowering the barrier to first contact.
