Sangha of Auspicious Companions

Solar Ambulance Built by 23 Students

In a test center in the Netherlands, a sleek white-and-yellow vehicle glides quietly over concrete — but it was built for something far rougher: the red-dirt roads of rural Kenya, where the nearest clinic can be a day’s journey away. Twenty-three university students, many of whom paused their degrees to see it through, spent a year constructing what may be the world’s first solar-powered ambulance. Named Stella Juva — “stella” for the team’s lineage of solar cars, “juva” from the Latin for “to help” — the vehicle carries tuberculosis testing kits, cooled vaccine storage, ultrasound equipment for pregnant women, and a defibrillator, all powered by roof-mounted solar panels and a battery for cloudy days or night runs. Its range stretches 715 kilometers on a sunny day, and crucially, as one partner noted, “it doesn’t have to go back to a central point — it can go on and on and on.” The design inverts the usual logic of emergency medicine: rather than rushing patients to hospitals, it brings the hospital to patients. The team heads to Kenya next month, spare tires and shovels packed for when the terrain fights back. Twenty-one-year-old project leader Mathijs van Gerven put it plainly: “We are 23 students and we built this within just one year. The technical industry should be able to do this way better and way faster.”

Be The Change

Carve out 15 minutes each day this week to research one issue in the world that tugs at your heartstrings. Often, the first step to addressing a challenge is simply to learn more about it.