Emergioffers more than just a mobility service—it’s a vision for sustainable,community-driven urban transformation. Our innovative approach combines a fleetof durable electric tuk-tuks, solar-powered charging infrastructure,cutting-edge digital solutions, and an affordable leasing model designed toempower women drivers. This modular and scalable system offers cities apractical way to reduce emissions, enhance urban transport, and createmeaningful economic opportunities for those who need them most. Emergi isn’t justabout getting from A to B—it’s about moving communities forward.
SUSTAINABILITY
Fuel supply chains are fragile. We saw this during the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and now the Covid-19, an outbreak in 2020. Instantly, there are fuel shortages, as cars and kekehs alike are queuing up at the gas stations. Electric kekeh's are not dependent on fuel so will not be hindered by shortages. However, making the introduction of electric kekeh's truly sustainable means for us that we have to include solar EV charging stations. This drastically brings down the cost of electricity for the driver and increases accessibility to sustainable energy resources in the countries we work in . It also increases the reliability of the electricity supply since the national grid often suffers from power outages. Therefore we are introducing these concurrently with the electric kekeh's. As we generate profits we will continue investing into the EV solar charging network.
At Emergi we want to make sustainable innovations available for everyone and these innovations should always respond to needs on the ground. This is why, at Emergi, we co-create our products together with potential users and our customers. Therefore, we conducted a two-month research mission in Liberia to understand their needs and wishes while developing a small urban vehicle. In this mission our researchers talked to dozens of kekeh drivers, renewable energy actors, kekeh sellers and other stakeholders. This research mission culminated in a 3-day design-thinking workshop. For this workshop we invited Liberians from the renewable energy sector, transportation sector and others who showed huge enthusiasm for our project. We presented them with the 5 overarching challenges we identified in the market research.
- How to get more female drivers
- How to make more money with a kekeh
- How to improve payment systems
- How to ensure driving on renewable energy
- How to empower the kekeh driver more
In the two days of design thinking workshop the group came up with incredible solutions and ideas that will guide us in designing the ideal sustainable urban vehicle for Liberia and the wider West African market.
Leandra Stolk, a graphic designer, supporting the Emergi team for these two days captured the design challenge in a fantastic visualisation.
