The lamps were designed and built by Adithya Venkatesh, a high schooler from San Jose, who founded Savitar Labs to build affordable renewable energy devices for low-income communities. The Institute of Social Welfare and Rural Entrepreneurship Development -iSRED has been distributing the 4 lamps to households Salem and will report back on how they hold up in daily use as Savitar Labs plans its next phase of production.
The idea did not start in a lab. It started in Bangalore, where Adithya's family moved from San Jose in 2017 and lived for five years while he attended school there. One evening, he overheard the family's household help asking his parents for a couple of battery-operated torches, so her children would have something to study by after dark. Adithya kept asking why the children didn't simply have lights at home. His parents explained what energy poverty looks like for millions of families across India. That conversation stayed with him.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that something as basic as light to read by was out of reach for kids my own age, just because of where they were born,” Adithya said. “I wanted to build something that was cheap enough that cost was never the reason a family went without it.”
Over the next several years, working through evenings and weekends around his high school coursework, Adithya taught himself the basics of circuit design, battery management, and LED lighting, building and discarding prototype after prototype. Savitar Labs, which he later incorporated as a California 501(c)(3) nonprofit, keeps its engineering purpose-built and simple, tests early versions directly with the communities who will use them, and leans on local partners for manufacturing and distribution once a design is ready.
To get from a working prototype to something that could be manufactured reliably and cheaply at scale, Adithya connected with a design house in Taiwan, where an engineer named Kenneth helped refine the lamp's electronics and casing. The current design runs on two 2,600 mAh rechargeable batteries, puts out up to 2,497 lux at 50 centimeters, and can run for 10 to 17 hours on a single charge, replacing the kerosene lamps that many families still rely on.
The Institute of Social Welfare and Rural Entrepreneurship Development (iSRED) is proud to announce its partnership as the first collaborator organization of Savitar Labs in Tamil Nadu. Grounded in its core mission to drive sustainable livelihoods, rural development, and climate resilience, iSRED has long witnessed the severe educational and economic hurdles caused by inadequate grid electricity. 'We see every day what families go without when the power is unreliable or the nearest connection is too far,' said Ms. Dhivya, Managing Director of iSRED. 'A safe, free light source that a child can use to study at night matters more than people realize
Among the families who received a lamp is Mrs. Amirtham, the mother of Kanishka, in Salem. “My children used to study by candlelight sometimes because the power comes and goes as it pleases,” she said. “This lamp has made a real difference in their studies.”
With the Salem distribution, Savitar Labs' solar lamps have now reached four families across Yercaud Adivaram and Mettupatti Thathanur in the Salem region, as the organization targets a manufacturing cost of under $10 per lamp.
“Getting these lamps into homes across Salem is just one step,” Adithya said. “Once we know the design holds up in real homes, in real weather, over real months, we want to work with more NGOs across India to get this into as many hands as possible, at a price that never becomes the obstacle.”
Savitar Labs is a California-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that designs affordable renewable energy and household technology for underserved communities. For more information, contact info@savitarlabs.com or +1 408-640-9860.