 We're back. We're live and this is energy. This is Hawaii, the state of clean energy, and we're talking to Alice Chun. Her middle name is Ming Xiu and she's been to a number of schools. I wonder why does MIT stick in my brain? What have you done aside from MIT? You're an academician, aren't you? Yeah, I was really a professor of design and material culture at Columbia University and I taught graduate architecture design. I've also taught at Parsons, the new school for architecture design, industrial design, lighting design, and I was the director of material technology lab at Parsons. And when I was teaching at Columbia when the Haiti earthquake happened, basically we've been witnessing so many natural disasters and so many changes happening to our environment that I said this is enough. We need to do something to help and let's try to start here and see how we can help Haiti. So I changed my studio around to be an innovation studio to help Haiti and my focus is solar energy. So we found out when we looked into Haiti in 2010 that only five percent of the country was electrified and everyone was using kerosene lanterns to light their world at night, which is a deadly toxic fuel. Two million children die every year from using kerosene lanterns. There's 500,000 fires from kerosene lanterns in South Africa alone and people that are living in extreme poverty are spending up to 30 percent of their income on kerosene to light their world at night and I thought this was the moment where I decided to become a social entrepreneur because if that money could be saved that would allow people to use that money for food for clothing for their children for education for their kids and maybe even to start a small business and so that's when I decided to look into and we researched every single solar light out there in the market and they were all heavy bulky utilitarian looking and hard plastic that's not recyclable and I grew up doing origami. My mother taught me origami when I was a little girl and I designed a solar lamp based on the origami balloon and this is our product which is a flat light and it has three settings and it pops open into a cube and it's extremely light and beautiful it's made out of stale cloth material basically you can fit hundreds in a box the other lanterns you can only fit like eight in the box so you save on shipping costs and you save money that way but also in deployment for disaster relief you can get immediately many many solar lights out there to people who need them most and the reason why I decided to focus on solar energy and solar innovation was because when my son was born with asthma I realized that the number of kids that have asthma these days is phenomenal and has increased by weeks and bounds from when I was a kid and I did research and you know there's a saying a worried mom does better research than the FBI well that's what I did and one out of four kids had asthma in New York City now it's 50% and in our humanitarian aid when we were helping in Puerto Rico Puerto Rico has 75% people have have asthma and it's because of the environment the pollution from our buildings from cars from our HVAC from heating and cooling all of that's creating energy from charging our phones that's creating pollution from carbon emissions and and fossil fuels so 75% of the pollution comes from building in urban areas and especially in New York and it's too early in our gene pool for us to be changing this rapidly so it has to be because of our environment and so that's why I decided to focus on solar technology and me coming from in materials technology background and sustainability I research every material and we use recyclable material we use non-toxic material PVC which is a terrible material we know PVC and any of our products and solar energy you know the sun is the most amazing source of energy the most powerful source of energy that comes to the earth every day it's enough energy to light seven billion light bulbs for an entire lifetime and in just one day and so at our company and when I when I travel around the world also teaching children about solar energy and regions that you know I actually just came back from Haiti after the earthquake just last year and I tell them the story about how powerful the sun is but you know what the light of your imagination and the light of your heart is more powerful than the sun and if you fight with that light there's nothing you can't do and we believe that absolutely that's why we started this company to help those in need and to also teach children the future of our planet about the power of the light that's inside all of us the genius that's inside all of us that we're all born with and to spur on curiosity invention and innovation um so I was actually just on a call this morning with a group of a community in Detroit where there's you know there's a huge section of the community there that lives well below the poverty line and children that are in underserved communities and I'm planning on having virtual seminars with those kids to teach them about solar technology as well and um this is just it's a small solar light but if we all use one of these lights just for one hour a day every day per year we can save 90 pounds of carbon emissions like just one person just using this little light for an hour every day 90 pounds of carbon emissions and you if you multiply that by everyone in the country you're saving about 11 billion tons of carbon emissions which is incredible and that's why we really believe and and um are saying which is which is small things matter design matters and if we all work together doing one small thing we can change the world because everyone each one of us did something for the demise of the planet we all did one little thing like throwing away a plastic bottle or you know using diesel fuel for for our cars and this led to the demise of the planet that I believe that we all can heal the planet if we all do something small and so that's our story for solar light design and um actually we have a much larger larger product this is called the twin and it opens up like a book it fans out and then turns into a cube and this also lights up and it also charges a phone so there's two big solar panels here and you can charge your phone and this will last if you have a power out it that's another thing is the grid our infrastructure is getting old but our population is growing and so there's only so much our infrastructure can handle unless we build more infrastructure so we have like 20 increase in power outages every year and and as you know we have more and more natural disasters where you know in Utah we have fires for the first time um taxes was was getting snow for the first time in in 10 years so because we have more power outages if you if you have this lamp this big lamp um this will give you four days of light constant and you can charge your phone as well so how can I sign up for your class Alice um you can join us I mean like I'll let you know when when we schedule these these classes with kids um I teach them origami well before the pandemic we recycle and um at the end of the life cycle of of the solar pop the solar pop lamp um you can send in the circuit and we'll take care of it and we use the circuit for teaching so the kids can see this is a solar panel this is what a circuit is these are LEDs this is the controller and this circuit is the mind it's the brain behind this lamp and um it's a lot of fun but most importantly we we like to spur on curiosity and questions because we believe that you know having the right answer is how we've been taught our whole lives that but when you're out in reality it's the questions that really matter the most so um we got intellectual property protection on this yes I have a few patents I have a patent on the Quinn I have um this big lamp I have a patent on the solar pop and I have actually I I did another patent during the pandemic I invented a transparent mask that also has filters in it um because the hearing impaired they need to read lips in order to communicate and as you know during the pandemic you know we can see people's faces anymore um that's going into clinical trials right now um anyway so I have why why is that have to go through clinical trials well um basically we're doing um more development we shipped out our first generation masks and now that we have feedback we're gonna do um we have a partnership we actually got this mask actually lights your face oh it doesn't light your face but you can see everyone's face it's trans it's transparent actually I have it I have it here um it it actually just sticks it sticks to your face and it doesn't have ear loops or a head harness it'll just adhere to your face can it get intellectual property protection on that yep yeah I I did file a patent utility patent and there's filters on the side yeah you can you can take it off now so I can hear you better so Alice is pretty interesting I mean you've you've gone from academician to inventor to entrepreneur you have partners you have investors you have a manufacturing facility that you can call and have the manufacturer your your your invention yes all of the above Jay we have a factory in a couple of different factories that we work with in Shenzhen China and we um have an investor for soleight design and it's been um a very difficult ride it's very it's a very hard journey but um I'm so passionate about what we're doing and believe in this product so much that um we've been able to actually um actually be featured in a docuseries that is airing on Apple community September 9th oh that's great okay so you know let me ask you some questions about the product so what's the material of the product that you the product she was showing us the the lights is that is that uh plastic or paper or what so this is PET and it is recyclable um it has no PVC in it but um this is a material that I researched a long time to find the perfect material that is strong enough to hold its form but soft enough fold and beautiful and that it it is a perfect diffuser for light and so there's a tri-axial weave in here that you can see and that gives it its strength and when the light turns on it becomes a beautiful tube you have to affirmatively turn it on is a switch in the top that you're turning on and off actually we it does have a light sensor as well so if you press the button for three seconds so now sensing the light in the room so it turned off but I'm covering the light sensor it's turning on so it looks um uh forgive me but it looks fragile is it fragile is it breakable or will it last for a while this should last five at least five years some people have said that it lasts for seven years um what fails the battery fails first okay so if I how do I go through the charging cycle in other words how much light do I need to charge it once it's charged how long would it last without light so I usually just keep this on my windowsill with the solar panel facing up and all day for eight hours it comes 50 charge and we recommend charging it in the sun when you get it the twin light actually you can you can charge this with a usb port and you can rapid charge we recommend rapid charging it when you first get it you can't um um ship things by air freight with a fully charged battery so you have to ship them by by error um 50 percent charge so um so once you get it charge it up and use it how how long will it last if I charge it all day will it will it stay on all night yes it'll it'll last eight to 12 hours the big one it'll last it'll last four days great okay oh so you charge it one day and it lasts four days yeah that's pretty good and what about you know you said put it in the sunlight but what about there is no sunlight out it's a dark day or who knows what you don't have the full the full sun available what happens then on cloudy days it you know it'll be charging at 75 percent capacity so it'll take longer are you an engineer i'm an architect i mean i my training is an architect and i would say architecture is the best liberal arts education that you could you could get because you can apply it to to any profession um and basically we're always making models and drawing and well it's all that every every architect is an engineer isn't it true yes yes in a way like we have to study structure and we we have to take engineering classes and mechanical engineering and all of that but but are you are you selling these devices on amazon or some online sales so i can go on amazon right now and i can look up solar or sunlight design sunlight design you know google sunlight design or solar pop and or just go to our website so light dash design dot com and you can order our lights there how much do they cost so the solar pop which is our smaller lantern it's it's uh 32 the big lamp the star shape one that one is 110 that's the one with the large solar panels and phone charging and we have different versions of the solar pop we have the twilight which is the mini solar lantern they all flat pack and they're origami so um they fold and i can take it camping with me that would be perfect j do it it'll be perfect so i mean this is really an extraordinary device are you making any money are you a millionaire now i'm not a millionaire i am struggling startup but we have been able to help over a million people worldwide and disaster relief um if you think about one light given to a family the impact is five people because most most families and communities in in disaster regions are at least five people per family well i want to talk about that because among all the things you mentioned today that is very touching that you go out into undeveloped countries like Haiti for example and uh you help them do you do you actually give them the lights do you send them a big package of lights who who spends the money for that we donate lights but also our customers have the option to give a light so they buy to donate a light so we did send lights to the ukrainian refugees in poland and maldova um and sometimes and we work with partners like um our nonprofit partners that do disaster relief and they buy our lights that a special discount at wholesale and they deliver our lights and they have volunteers that actually distribute them and i actually have gone on distribution rounds where we do light drops i went to port urico a few times delivering lights after hurricane maria i went to um the little island of dominica after hurricane dorian um i went to nigeria um early on we we did a lot of field testing i did five years of field testing in haiti in the central plateau before we actually launched the product you're aware that uh there was an article and i think it was the times on the washington post a couple of days ago about haiti about how um you know the us was really not sufficiently helping haiti um but it was interdicting all the refugees who were trying to get out of haiti and come to the united states it was it's a sad article in fact we linked it in our in our daily advisory today because uh it was um it was important it was an important article haiti is an example of a a civilization a society which has essentially collapsed and if you want to know about the collapse of societies you have to study haiti because it'll show you it's true and um they've been and you know the the poorest country in the western hemisphere it's only a three hour plane ride from new york and when you it's it's extremely sad because too um it's not their fault i mean we had the embargo where that basically made the whole economy collapse in haiti and they lost so much and that's when they plummeted into into poverty and there's so many worries they had the hurricane and then they had the assassination and now they have gang gangs roaming the streets there's there's no civil society there anymore which is very very tragic especially in the fact that nobody is helping them i know i i have to say like when i first went there back in 2010 it reminded me of korea which is where i'm from and when i was a teenager in korea um there was nothing there i mean rubble there was um no just you know the old kind of squat toilets and no western toilets or anything when i was and it was it was you know a lot of poverty but korea had one thing which is a lot of people that wanted to work hard they don't they didn't have any oil or diamonds or you know precious stones they just had a lot of people that wanted to work hard and and haiti reminded me of korea there was a lot of rubble but there's so many people so many people that were willing to work hard and had ambition maybe there's hope for haiti maybe this maybe your contributions to them will help one other thing about you know asia that you know 20 years ago i was i was in beijing and they had a ceremony of lanterns we have this in hawai to lanterns on the water and the candle or some kind of you know lighting device inside the lantern and and it's made out of paper and they float and after a while they don't float but but your devices remind me of this asian lanterns thing and i and i wonder if your design you know is taking you know the essence of these floating lanterns because they really look similar well you can float these on water too the solar path the solar path like this this area of the circuit and the solar board or in one ladder separated from from the diffuser so this this part can fill up with water but it's still waterproof and this one will float for a little while and then we have another one this is called the helix and this one it twists open and this one's made out of tpu which is a biodegradable thermoplastic and this will float more on top of water and so many many of these products are used for pools and things like that well you know this has a prospect in in terms of architecture there are avant-garde architects in the us and in in europe you may know some of them and they like to design buildings that are really very efficient use clean energy and you know don't don't don't they don't take a lot of energy by by wire they they take it from the sun and so for a lot of solar and gee i i can see these devices being used in buildings as as the way you light the building of course the other way which i don't know if you've considered is to have a kind of material that transmits the light from outside to inside so that there's really no space inside that is not lit all day of course you have to you have to have the sun shining but the light is transmitted on this kind of plastic and and it comes into the building and you always have light this is particularly useful in commercial retail establishments where you know the work day is is you know the time you need the light and so you never have a situation where you don't have light for your your staff employees visitors customers guests what have you but you know all of this suggests to me you've shown us the little one you've shown us the big one you've shown us the the one in the middle that twist the helix let's see you've shown us the mask um it's not over for you is it alice i hope not day what's your next project and if if it's secret then it's just you know don't tell me but if it's something you can talk about if it's something you can talk about let's hear about the next you know the next chapter of of soul light um we're actually we're we're working on another prototype for a just the larger version of the solar path that's a bigger cube but also has phone charging and um i i had someone approach me do a dome for um school children classroom like a solar classroom that could be a pod that travels anywhere and to be self sufficient but um these are all in the works right now and the only thing that's definitive i have filed a patent for the next generation solar path um but who knows what's going to happen next in terms of if there's if i see a problem where i could use design to help fix it or to create a better solution then i'll be there i think you'll ever uh be a classical architect you know design buildings and you know architects customarily do no you're you've left that ship has sailed huh that has long sailed into the blue and you never know what what's gonna happen in terms of um you know there's a story that i i i when i when i lecture to the kids that you know the greeks believed there were two lines of time so there's two characters of time one is young and one is old and the old character of time his name is chrono and he is old with a beard and he's slow and he's predictable and that line of time is straight and the young one his name is chiaros the etymology for chaos and he's young with wings on his ankle and he flips and flies about and he's unpredictable and you you can't catch him because he doesn't even have hair in the back of his head he's bald so he can't catch his hair from behind and when those and that line of time goes like this it's unpredictable now when those two lines of time intersect those are the moments of invention those are the moments of opportunity and if you have curiosity and if you have need that's what invention occurs wow okay i want to ask you one last question we've talked about your your training your focus your interest in helping people we talked about your product um we talked about the um you know the the satisfaction of like edisonian may i say edisonian satisfaction and material science and all that it's impressive here and so if i'm just an ordinary joe blow watching this program and meeting you alice john what would you like me to take away how would you inspire me something you've probably said to your classes over time but how do you inspire me to be an entrepreneur to be an inventor to to be the combination of the old and the young um well there's a saying by a wonderful poet his name is chief theaddle and he said humankind has not woven the web of life but we are but one thread within it and if we harm that web we harm ourselves everything is interconnected and so everything that we do if we do together we can change the world okay i'll take it from there and the next show we do we'll we'll delve into the political implications of what you've just said alice ming su chun of the uh entrepreneur behind a stowlight design you can look it up on the web a very interesting company product journey and person thank you alice thank you for having me it's wonderful to be here i'm so honored loha thank you so much for watching think tech hawaii if you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo you can also follow us on facebook instagram twitter and linked in and donate to us at think tech hawaii dot com mahalo