We start with a mobile solar power generator (instead of a diesel generator), which has great value as an emergency-response unit in generating solar electricity and purified water in a disaster. Since this "emergency
asset" would just sit around waiting to respond to an emergency -- at considerable expense -- we've devised an enterprise to use it in the meantime.
We take a large solar power generator, a 25-foot-long trailer with solar panels, inverters and batteries, and use it as a movable classroom to teach kids hands-on skills they might not learn otherwise.
The first courses we teach will be on disaster preparedness and emergency response, and courses that use STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) based curriculum already being taught in some schools.
ME4 brings these courses to homeschoolers and underserved communities, not just as a mobile classroom, but as a rolling showcase of [working] technology that will be hard to find anywhere. It can provide solar power,
clean water and clear communications. Similar to the idea of a bookmobile, it’s a "techmobile."
When there's an emergency or disaster, schools are a first line of refuge, and the ME4 system can either be used there for minor emergencies, or deployed to an emergency site where it can provide solar power and clean
water for thousands of people in a major disaster.
We will also continue developing courses that use inventive design as the basis of project-oriented, hands-on learning through building actual products. These products are designed and developed for and in collaboration
with people who live on 1 to 3 dollars a day.
Our longer-term goal is to use the products and kits we develop in globally-connected enterprise creation in developing countries such as South Sudan, Afghanistan and El Salvador. The mobile solar generator itself
can work as the energy and communications hub for many in-country enterprises.
