From Refugee to Green Energy Entrepreneur

Solar-powered Kiosks Provide Refugees with Vital Online Education and Job Opportunities

After several members of his family were killed during the bloody civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Innocent Tshilombo fled his homeland in 2009 to avoid a similar fate. At the age of 20, he escaped to Kenya where he has lived since in the Kakuma Refugee Camp along with nearly 200,000 other refugees.

In the camp there were few educational or job opportunities for refugees, so he learned English and decided to pursue an online education. One of the biggest obstacles, however, was finding affordable and accessible internet connections. So Innocent borrowed $70 from friends and applied for several small start-up grants to build a solar-powered internet kiosk so that he and his fellow refugees could connect to the outside world.

The internet device allowed Innocent to enroll at University of the People, an American online university, and earn a bachelor’s degree in business administration. His quest to improve his life and those of his fellow refugees, however, was far from over. Instead, Innocent decided to create a non-profit organization to build solar-powered internet nodes throughout the refugee camp to provide affordable and reliable internet service. He now has 20 internet nodes set up in the camp and his goal is to build 100. 

Innocent said he used the knowledge and skills he learned studying business at UoPeople to launch and run his non-profit which won the 2022 Ashden Award, a prestigious international award for sustainable energy projects. “For places without electricity, green energy is the way to go,” he said. “It doesn’t cause harm to the environment, it doesn’t require a lot of maintenance, and we don’t have to keep buying fuel. It’s sustainable.” As a result of his solar-powered internet nodes, many of his fellow refugees are finally able to study and find jobs online as well as open their own small virtual businesses.

Innocent, now age 34, describes himself as a “change agent in an era of digital connectivity.” He says since getting his UoPeople business degree he has received a number of job opportunities, and he is currently working as a consultant for several humanitarian organizations while continuing to run his company, Kakuma Ventures. This April, Innocent will start studying with UoPeople again – this time to earn an MBA.

About University of the People

University of the People (UoPeople) is the Education Revolution. It is the first non-profit, tuition-free, American-accredited online university. Currently there are over 126,000 students from more than 200 countries and territories. Designed to open access to higher education globally, UoPeople helps qualified high school graduates overcome financial, geographic, political, and personal constraints keeping them from collegiate studies. The university offers associate and bachelor’s degree programs in business administration, computer science, and health science, as well as an MBA and M.Ed. program. Graduates of UoPeople can be found working at such companies as Deloitte, Amazon, Apple, Pfizer, Google, Microsoft and IBM. UoPeople collaborates with Harvard Business School Online, New York University, McGill University, and the University of Edinburgh and has been supported by foundations such as the Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation and Hewlett Foundation. Learn more at www.uopeople.edu.