Portable Light

Empower People.

Our Mission

The Portable Light Project enables the world’s poorest people to create and own energy harvesting textiles, providing the benefits of renewable power as an integral part of everyday life.

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Most Recent News: Field Reports, Project Milestones, Community Announcements

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Spread the word about this great cause and BID JULY 5 THROUGH THE 15th!!

The May 2010 ELLE article "Electric Company" saluted some of the brightest, and most fashion-forward, ideas in energy. Eight designers teamed up with architect and director of the Portable Light Project, Sheila Kennedy and her team at KVA MATx (link). Their task: to use Portable Light solar textile kits to create bags that are a source of light and power.

In 2005, Kennedy saw the need to bring light to areas that suffer from energy poverty and created an adaptable solar textile kit to provide renewable light and power. Since the creation of "Portable Light" bags and textiles, her vision has been transforming the lives of women and their families living in remote areas of the world. The Portable Light Project now works with nonprofits in Africa, Central America, Haiti, and India. See bags created by Joseph Muteti, a Kenyan tailor and eight international designers who all graciously offered their talents to further ELLE and Kennedy's Portable Light Project: Tommy Hilfiger, Diane von Furstenburg, Rogan, Loomstate, Lutz & Patmos, Loeffler Randall, Vena Cava, and Zero + Maria Cornejo.

Now, it's YOUR turn to help the ELLE/Portable Light Project! Our auction of the nine beautifully-crafted yet amazingly functional designer handbags will run on Ebay from July 5-15. 100% of the proceeds benefit the non-profit partners of the Portable Light Project, supporting women and children in areas all over the world.

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Visit http://poptech.org/flap to see where FLAP testers are located, read feature stories on the Web, view videos of the bags in use, and much more!

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Gemma Haines reports on the Portable Light project. See how some of the world's top fashion designers developed bags integrating the Portable Light solar textile kit in collaboration with Elle Magazine.

Sheila Kennedy is featured in the article 'Jack Donaghy and the Future of Manufacturing in America' by Scott Anderson aka @greenskeptic. Visit the article here.

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Nigel Waller, PopTech Social Innovation Fellow and founder of Movirtu, will be taking 4-watt FLAP prototypes to Africa to support his initiative ‘to expand the use of mobile communication by the rural poor communities in Sub-Sahara Africa and South Asia living on less than $2 a day to improve their sustainable livelihoods and help alleviate poverty.’

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One of the interesting discussions at the FLAP bag launch was how to develop new delivery models for mobile clean energy. Most globally branded soft goods retailers operate with centralized offshore production models. We’re exploring a hybrid approach to manufacturing Portable Light solar textile kits. The flexible photovoltaic materials are produced in Europe at scale, and local business people can order kits and customize the technology using their own skills, inventiveness and locally available materials. Erik Hersman of Ushahidi and his team recently documented this co-creation process with tailors in Ghana and Kenya. We think this is an interesting way to grow locally owned small to mid-size businesses in African cities. These local clean energy businesses could empower people to access renewable light and charge a cell phone, providing connectivity to mobile technologies that are transforming banking, business, education and health care in Africa.

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At PopTech, the Portable Light team met Janet Ginsburg, writer for the Tracker Blog. We felt that her summary of the first day of the conference has been the best we've seen--check it out here.

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After PopTech curator Andrew Zolli made the announcement just before 11am, a flurry of PT'ers descended upon the 3rd flood booth at the Camden Opera House to purchase the much-anticipated FLAP prototype. During the breaks of the morning sessions, the FLAP team met a number of passionate entrpreneurs, NGOs, engineers, and creative innovators who will be taking the 70 prototypes into many corners of the world as field testers.

Photo by Dan Austin for PopTech 2009

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Sheila Kennedy joined FLAP collaborator Kevin McSpadden of Timbuk2 Designs, PopTech 2009 Fellow Emily Pilloton of Project H Design, and innovator John Bielenberg of Project_M at the workshop Design for Social Innovation for a lively panel discussion on the using design to produce effective change across the world, via education, policy making, and a shift in the approach in design process. An energetic kickoff to an amazing assembly of change agents gathered in scenic Camden, ME.

The theme of PopTech 2009 is 'America Reimagined," with live broadcasts available for live stream at their website.