Egyptian power cuts fuel an ecommerce solution

For the majority of Egypt’s 82 million residents, 2014 will no doubt go down in history as the year of the power cut. It didn’t matter which city you lived in, or the neighborhood you were from… nearly everyone encountered a long, hot, sticky summer thanks to the constant outages. The country’s already overstretched electricity generation system simply buckled under pressure. In fact, the situation surrounding Egypt’s energy sector has become so bad that power cuts are even becoming commonplace during the winter months.

Last September, Investment Minister Ashraf Salman stated that the government hoped foreign investment would help alleviate the problem in the long run. And it seems that this is slowly happening as an increasing number of international solar developers are focusing on the country. Investment deals by Saudi Arabia’s Fawaz Alhokair and the Terra Sola Consortium, as well as the UAE-based Enviromena and Masdar are just a few recent examples.

But it’s not just the billionaires who are looking at ways of benefitting from renewable energy. Young entrepreneurs are also using their own experiences to create solutions for the average resident. Like Mohamed Safi, Hisham Nabil (below right) and Aly Shalakany (below left), who have just launched Green Scene Egypt. Using their own experiences from personal trips – not to mention the dreaded power cuts in the country – the three friends started to brainstorm and soon enough their idea transformed into a reality.

Original article by Rachel McArthur

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Egyptian power cuts fuel an ecommerce solution

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