People like to say that when you solve one problem, you create others. That’s often true, but if you’re Moses Musaazi, you solve one problem and then apply that solution to solving other problems as well. Musaazi is an engineering professor at Makerere University in Uganda. I visited him at his workshop on the campus earlier this year.

He is also the founder of Technology for Tomorrow and inventor of the Makapad, an inexpensive, locally sourced and environmentally sustainable sanitary pad that has enabled girls in rural areas — without access to the commercial products so many of us take for granted — to stay in school when they get their periods. While girls often face huge obstacles to getting an education to begin with, hidden factors such as absenteeism during menstruation can be a tipping point. 

Made from papyrus and waste paper, the Makapads are cheap and easy to produce. They have made a big difference to girls across Uganda – see this report from Alice Bator, a student at Vanderbilt University who visited him and initiated a giving program — and also spurred a whole new wave of inventions, beginning with a simple fuel-less incinerator made to fit behind school toilets to dispose of the pads.

The incinerator has since also been deployed in prisons, as well as hospitals and rural clinics without safe ways of disposing of medical waste. Showing me around his workshop, where several ladies sat pressing the Makapads using a bulky hand-cranked machine, Musaazi also pointed out a fuel-efficient stove that boils water and cooks food at the same time; and a low-cost lighting that runs on batteries which only need charging every couple of weeks.

In short, Musaazi’s work is all about producing simple technologies with materials that are locally available, in order to meet the needs of schools, clinics, refugees, students, farmers and rural entrepreneurs in an environmentally sustainable manner.

Inexpensive lights that let children living off the grid study at night. Stoves that deliver one scarce and valuable resource — sanitized water — without using too much of another — firewood. On a continent where the environment is fragile, and most people have limited access to products and capital, these are the kinds of simple, sustainable things that really improve lives.

I’m now looking at working with Musaazi to introduce these inventions to new markets beyond Uganda – so be sure to let me know if you have any ideas!

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