Nigerian youth innovator and founder of LightEd, Stanley Anigbogu, has converted 600kg of discarded plastics into a solar-powered energy hub for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Abuja.

The 2025 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year established the Lighthouse for Peace project at Durumi IDP camp, where 30 solar streetlights and 20 floodlights provide lighting, while the energy hub charges over 250 devices weekly.

The project transformed almost 30,000 discarded plastic bottles of about 600kg into a community energy hub, providing lighting for children to study after sunset and creating opportunities for young volunteers to acquire green skills.

In Uganda, an entrepreneur and the 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year, Shifra Ainomugisha, is also deploying solar technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to help farmers reduce post-harvest losses.

She is using solar-powered cold storage, irrigation and AI to help smallholder farmers preserve produce, improve productivity and increase their earnings.

Anigbogu serves on the 23-member International Taskforce shaping the 2026 Commonwealth Youth Forum, scheduled for November 2 to 4 in Antigua and Barbuda, alongside the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

Both are expected to share their experiences of developing solar-powered and AI-enabled solutions, with recommendations, at the forum.

Speaking on his initiative, Anigbogu, who founded LightEd in 2020, drawing from his childhood experience of unreliable electricity to develop solutions that address energy challenges in underserved communities, said he wants to “ensure that darkness never limits another child’s ambition.”

He also founded Artechubs Nigeria to address educational challenges through technology, as well as Re-build Inc., a hardware research, development and engineering studio working to close Africa’s infrastructure gap.

Similarly, Ainomugisha co-founded and leads Solafam Uganda Ltd – a women-led social enterprise that emerged from her experience on her family’s tomato farm in western Uganda, where she witnessed produce spoil before reaching the market.

Solafam uses solar-powered cold rooms to preserve produce, solar irrigation systems to support farmers during dry spells and LYN AI, a WhatsApp-based adviser that guides planting, pest control, irrigation, harvesting and market decisions.

Since 2022, the enterprise has supported over 1,500 smallholder farmers, 70 per cent of them women, and has also helped to reduce post-harvest losses by 30 per cent and increase household incomes by 28 per cent.