Ugandan entrepreneur uses briquettes to tackle gender and development issues

The Ugandan entrepreneur Betty Ikalany uses agricultural waste such as maize and ground husks to make charcoal briquettes in Uganda. She is one of the four laureates of the African Start-up Award at the New York Forum Africa in Libreville, Gabon.

The banks would not give her a loan, so Ikalany sold her father's cow to finance her first project. She wanted to help women use cheaper and cleaner energy.

With her new business, "Appropriate Energy Saving Technologies", she makes improved cook stoves for sale to households and institutions at an affordable price. The stoves use less fuel than traditional metallic stoves, thus cooking more efficiently and saving energy. Women are not her only targets however. She wants to address gender along with development issues using clean energy and new technologies.