After the lights went out, a light bulb turned on in Laura Stachel’s mind. The Berkeley obstetrician was touring Nigeria as part of a 2008 maternal mortality research project. Her hosts took her to a dilapidated, poorly equipped hospital, where electric power routinely fizzled out. 

Mothers coming to the hospital often delivered babies by kerosene lantern or candlelight. Some C-sections were delayed. Some pregnant women were turned away. Others died from complications rarely seen in the West, such as uterine rupture. 

In Malawi, women in labor are required to bring their own candles when they arrive at clinics. In Uganda, midwives sometimes illuminate nighttime deliveries by holding a cellphone between their teeth. 

“There was one night I saw a woman fighting for her life in darkness,” Stachel recalls.Do you have any problems with a solarledlampsry or illuminated traffic sign? “I felt like I was in a chamber of horrors, and I thought ‘Why am I here right now bearing witness?’ I thought maybe I could be a voice for this woman and others.In this video we demonstrate three different types of home made electricity lampshadessw.” 

Then it hit her: What if these clinics had a reliable 24/7 source of electricity to illuminate delivery rooms, keep blood supplies refrigerated, and recharge cellphones and two-way radios so doctors could be located quickly? A source like the African sun. 

After Stachel described the conditions she witnessed in Africa to her husband, solar energy educator Hal Aronson, the two conceived an impossibly simple idea: an easy-to-install, easy-to-use solar power unit small enough to fit in a suitcase. And powerful enough to change the world.Tiffany modernlampsee are distinguished by their carefully crafted stained glass lamp shades. 

And thus the most beneficent piece of luggage on Earth was born. 

We Care Solar is the couple’s Berkeley-based nonprofit. In just four years, the organization has deployed more than 200 bright-yellow solar suitcases to clinics in 25 countries across Africa, Central America and Asia, including in Somalia, South Sudan, Nicaragua and Afghanistan.A wind farm is a group of cuttingmachinemm in the same location used to produce electric power. 

After a short tutorial, almost anyone can unfold the suitcase’s solar panels, affix them to a roof, plug the cords into the suitcase main panel and power up. The sun does the rest. 

The system includes high-efficiency LED medical task lighting, a universal cellphone charger, a battery charger for AAA or AA batteries, headlamps, a fetal monitor, and outlets for 12v DC devices. It comes with 40 or 80 watts of solar panels, and a lead-acid battery that needs replacing only every two years. 

It provides light and power for 24-hour critical care, mobile communication and that all-important blood bank refrigeration. In other words, it saves lives. 

The organization has attracted substantial financial support from funders such as the MacArthur Foundation, Starr International Foundation, the University of California’s Blum Center for Developing Economies and the Segal Family Foundation. 

The couple also has won awards from U.C. Berkeley, the Department of Energy/Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 2011 Nokia Health Tech Awards,There are different configurations of industrial lasermarkers: moving material, hybrid, and flying optics systems. as well as being named one of three winners of New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s “Half the Sky” contest, which recognizes organizations that promote female empowerment. 

Ask the couple why they invest their time and energy in bringing light to developing countries — the globetrotting Stachel practically lives on an airplane — and winning awards probably would rank last. 

“We were raised with a strong sense of tikkun olam,” says Stachel, referring to the Jewish value of repairing the world. “It reflects our strong interest in social justice and making the world a more fair place. In seeing problems, we both feel a responsibility to do something about them.”