GREEN ECONOMY

from FlyWestair April 2020

Green Economy

awarded on a world stage Social innovators

The team have made it their mission to support sustainable development through the introduction of carbon neutral transport alternatives to sensitive areas and local communities. E bikes4Africa was named the Best Social Impact Africa Project at the 2020 Global Tourism Startup Awards and also received a Social Innovators Retreat scholarship from the IE Africa Centre. The annual retreat is designed to create a unique intellectual opportunity for Africa’s most cutting edge social innovators. Based in Segovia, Spain, the institution promotes an Africa-centric view with the belief that “the approaches and methodologies employed by African leaders and entrepreneurs across different fields can offer instructive lessons to the world”. It’s a warm Sunday morning in March, and an electric scooter zips through Independence Avenue in Windhoek without a sound. It’s not an unusual sight, as Bernhard Walther is often spotted riding various forms of electric twowheelers through the city, but in Namibia he is one of very few who use alternative forms of transport. On the other side of the planet, in Madrid, the air is piercingly cold and it is drizzling lightly. An award ceremony is about to kick-off at the Wakalua Tourism Innovation Hub, hosted by UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili, and held in collaboration with Turismo de Portugal and Globalia, a leading tourism group in Spain and Latin America. Spain had just declared a climate emergency and passed a climate-conscious bill that supports zero-carbon mobility – electric vehicles are fast becoming the norm. Invited to attend the second Global Tourism Start-up Competition, Marita Walther represents a social enterprise that has been identified as one of eight “new companies that will lead the sector’s transformation”. As co-founders of Ebikes4Africa, Bernhard and Marita introduced their first solar-powered prototype to potential partners and users in Namibia at the end of 2014. A homebuilt model with a bottle battery and back hub motor, spray painted in canary-yellow for special effect, the first SunCycle, as it came to be known, worked with a throttle and was more of a simplified motorbike than a bicycle. Fast forward five years and a sleeker, streamlined version of the SunCycle has replaced quad bikes and game viewing vehicles at various eco-tourism establishments across the country. Designed and assembled in Namibia, SunCycle e-bikes are built with the environment in mind. The team have made it their mission to support sustainable development through the introduction of carbon neutral transport alternatives to sensitive areas and local communities. Apart from its role in local eco-tourism, Ebikes4Africa works with development partners, private institutions and municipalities to empower local communities through e-mobility and solar recharge infrastructure. Beneficiaries include game guards and anti-poaching units, kindergarten teachers, commuters and entrepreneurs, mainly in rural and remote areas. A pilot project with the City of Windhoek will also be launched in the coming months, focussed on making e-mobility and solar recharge more accessible to university students and supporting the city’s non-motorised transport initiatives. While Namibia still has a long way to go in terms of making the final switch to e-mobility, initiatives like these lead the way for future-conscious national developments, while global recognition and opportunities for social entrepreneurs further support a more sustainable industry. Find out more at www.ebikes4africa.org

Marita van Rooyen

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