NIU social entrepreneurs are in need of votes for Dell Social Innovation Challenge to win funding for a new device to help Africa create electricity.

John Harkness, Alan Hurt, Jason Schwebke and Mike Sutarik formed Light Up Africa and came up with the idea for Africans to easily and cheaply generate electricity. Hurt, senior mechanical engineering and industrial and systems engineering major, said 33 million Kenyans do not have access to electricity. The team developed Zoom Box, a small, lightweight device capable of drawing current from movement.

Bicycles, motorbikes, boats and livestock will be able to create electricity with the Zoom Box attached them. Electricity from the Zoom Box will be able to light up lamps and charge cell phones.

“It is designed in such a way that it can be attached to versatile vehicles, maintain portability and minimize the amount of moving parts to limit the need for repairs,” said John Harkness, strategic advisor for the team and NIU alumnus, said in an e-mail.

Harkness said he hopes the device will be the first step in providing electricity across the continent.

The idea behind the Zoom Box came to Hurt after riding a bicycle taxi in Africa. After spending time in Africa in 2010 with Engineers Without Borders, Hurt recognized people needed electricity. The device resembles the Shakelight flashlight, but there will be improvements, Hurt said.

Currently, Hurt is finishing a prototype. He is taking his time to build it so it does not have to be recreated repeatedly.

“There’s people with ideas that fail, and that’s not what I want to do,” Hurt said.

Light Up Africa hopes to sell 100,000 Zoom Boxes for $54 each. Hurt said this will be possible as there are millions of people in African without electricity and 19 million who use cellphones.

People do not have to change their lifestyle as the Zoom Box will provide electricity for their daily activities, Harkness said.

The Zoom Box can also create business for people who use it, Hurt said. A bicycle taxi driver can use the Zoom Box to sell cellphone charging to customers.

“People say Harvard and MIT are schools that always come up with the best ideas,” Hurt said. “NIU can be our Harvard and MIT. This is one of those things where NIU is trying to make a change.”

Hurt said if he doesn’t win the Dell Social Innovation Challenge he will continue to make electricity accessible for the 1.4 billion people deprived of it.

“There are other ways to lift people out poverty,” Hurt said.