Lighting up lives

By Lucas Oswald More than 5,014 companies founded in the last several decades have been the progeny of Stanford community members, according to the Wellspring of Innovation Project. While many of these companies fall squarely in the tech industry of Silicon Valley, several Stanford graduates have founded organizations that tackle social and environmental issues elsewhere.

One of these graduates is Ned Tozun B.S.'01, MBA'07, who found his true calling by utilizing his entrepreneurial skills to found light , which designs affordable and durable solar powered LED lights for people in developing countries with no or limited access to electricity.

As a computer science and earth systems double major, and later a graduate of the Graduate School of Business (GSB), Tozun never saw the need to narrow down his interests into a single profession.

Instead he decided to use his interdisciplinary education and diverse skill set in design, engineering and business to create his own start-up.

After obtaining his undergraduate degrees, Tozun worked as an engineer for seven months before dabbling in a few start-up ideas. During the same time period, Tozun and his fiancé did volunteer work with HIV/AIDS patients in Africa.

"I found doing work that had a social impact to be deeply meaningful and fulfilling," Tozun said, explaining that his work had "a very significant impact" on his view of the world.

Tozun described how returning to Silicon Valley to work on technology startups failed to give him the same feeling of fulfillment.

"I started to look for a way to blend my skills in the start-up tech world with what I really felt I was called to do," he said.

Goldman had discovered a need in the developing world that could be filled by modern technology. In slums and villages around the world, he noticed, inefficient, dangerous and expensive kerosene lamps are the main source of light. With innovations in LED and solar technology, Goldman found that better solutions existed.

With experience from a few start-ups and a greater familiarity with issues in the developing world under their belts, Tozun and Goldman attended the GSB to explore their entrepreneurial ideas.

Tozun said he chose the GSB for its social entrepreneurship focus and for a single class at the Institute of Design, "Design for Extreme Affordability."

After taking the class, Tozun and Goldman went to Southeast Asia to assess the need for affordable technology in the region.