Season 2, Episode 5: Ndiarka Mbodji, Kowry Energy
This week's episode of The Solar Journey takes us to sub-Saharan Africa with Ndiarka Mbodji, CEO and founder of Kowry Energy, as the company rolls out sustainable energy solutions across the continent.
Ndiarka's background in chemistry and business management, plus a 15 year tenure in the corporate world at Rolls-Royce, led her to excel in operational roles. But it was her deep connection to Senegal, and her goal of helping the people there gain economic sovereignty, that led to her career shift to renewable energy. She shares how her experiences of going back and forth between Europe and Africa sparked a realization about the vast disparity in energy access—and why the future of development in Africa lies in affordable, reliable power.
With Kowry Energy, Ndiarka envisions energy as the "new currency for economic development," linking Africa's prosperous past with its bright future. “The number one thing you need is energy,” she emphasizes, discussing her company’s mission to foster economic sovereignty for rural communities through reliable, scalable off-grid solutions.
Throughout the conversation, Ndiarka touches on the challenges and opportunities of running a startup in a market as complex as Africa, how her corporate experience shaped her approach to leadership, and the critical role of quality in delivering long-term impact. PLUS, in the Espresso segment Radovan Kopecek touches base to discuss the latest in manufacturing news from India and Europe, along with the IP disputes that are increasingly entangling TOPCon manufacturers.
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Show Notes:
Ndiarka’s transition from Rolls-Royce to founding Kowry Energy.
How Africa’s history of trade, symbolized by the cowrie shell, inspired Kowry Energy’s mission to drive economic development through energy.
The importance of quality and reliability in energy solutions for rural communities: “The key of an industry is not putting an asset on the ground, it’s maintaining and operating it for 25 years.”
Why solar and off-grid solutions are key to unlocking Africa’s economic potential.
Insights into the challenges of scaling energy projects in sub-Saharan Africa and the need for strong infrastructure and customer education.
Ndiarka's vision for energy as the foundation of economic sovereignty for Africa’s rural communities.
Transcript
[00:00:00.000] - Torsten
Welcome, Ndiarka.
[00:00:01.170] - Ndiarka
Thank you, Torsten. A pleasure to be here.
[00:00:03.730] - Torsten
Before we get started, I would like to introduce Ndiarka with a few spotlights on her past. She holds a degree in chemistry and business management, and she worked for seven years in the automotive industry, where she held several operational roles in supply chain management. Then she joined the big brand, Rolls-Royce Group, where she has gained more experience in the areas of supply chain, operational excellence, engineering and customer business. Since 2021, she's the CEO and founder at Kowry Energy. That's a company providing affordable and sustainable energy solutions to the sub-Saharan Africa.
At The Solar Journey, we often speak to people who have been in the solar industry for decades, almost since its early days, and you're a relatively new arrival. What was the opportunity that you saw that drew you to solar?
[00:01:00.520] - Ndiarka
Before I start, I would like first to comment everyone which has been, as you say, in the journey before me. And certainly it's because of them that we, the newbies, we are here today. So we are really proud to follow in their path. Because at Kowry, we like to define ourselves more as an energy solutions provider, because we see solar as a source of energy. Of course, when you operate in sub-Saharan Africa, it's a major source source of energy that you have to leverage because it's economically makes sense. But we do not dismiss, of course, the other energy sources. But clearly, solar is one of our main source of energy.
Coming back to your question, why did we let corporations go and deliver renewable energy, mainly solar, into sub-Saharan Africa? It's all about business. When you do business, of course, you have to look at where is the market, where is the need, and do you have the skill and the know-how to go and deliver that need. And more importantly, as we, our generation, are facing a tremendous challenge to ensure the sustainability of the next generation and the planet, of course, there is all dots lined up – then it has to be sub-Saharan Africa. It has to be renewables. And that's the area we've decided to come in and play.
[00:02:24.560] - Torsten
Was there a special moment where you said, I have to quit my job in the fossil fuel industry industry, burning fossil fuel industry, and then move to solar? Was there a certain moment where you thought, well, I need to make a little sidestep in my career or move in a different direction?
[00:02:40.890] - Ndiarka
It was not really like a drop moment to say, oh, today I'm stopping everything. I think with me, it was more an iterative process. Two things just step by step, creep in and merge. One is obviously, as you just said before, I was in big company. I spent nearly 16 years at Rolls-Royce Group. In different parts of the group, I was absolutely happy in that group. I could have spent my entire career there because I was just literally a fish in the water doing extremely challenging things, growing every single day. And I think when you grow and being provided with the ability and the space to grow, you just don't see the time going.
So two things happen, I think, in parallel. One is I had this continuous challenge by my managers, my team to grow. And one of this challenge was actually from the board to say, well, look, you're leading this company, you and your peers, you have to give us some innovative ideas for the next business we should be going for. And we're a power company at Rolls-Royce. Maybe we do power for the air, for the land, for the sea with the capability we have, but what is the next level, what are the next businesses we should be investing in?
So you start thinking about that with other people, connecting the dots, looking at what's happening at a macroeconomic level and what's happening in the world, what are the tendencies, and you start thinking about, there is a continent without energy, what technology do we have? So that is that thinking. That's the one thing that happened over the time.
And the second thing is my personal journey. Obviously, I'm Senegalese, I'm French. I was born in in Senegal, raised in Gambia and in France. Children of immigrants have been going back and forward. So I always say I won the lottery tickets when my parents moved to France. I had a great education, went to university, had a great job. When you come back and forth, you realize there is something different. People your age, your own family. I'm the first generation of family farmers. You see what I mean? You go to the village and you see why is it that where I live in Europe and where the rest of my family live in Africa, in Senegal, in this matter, in Gambia, where I grew up, there is a significant difference. You put one plus one and you realize, well, the development level is not the same.
You do your small root cause analysis and basically, long story short, the development hasn't happened as much in those regions and the baseline infrastructure for development is energy. With all of that compute, when you head over time, you're like, kay, come a moment, what is it actually that I'm doing with my skills? It's not by sending money every month back home, because that's what we do, we, children of immigrants or older the immigrants, exnationals or whatever you call it in Europe. We are sending remittances, the biggest budget GDP is in Africa. Is it the solution? Obviously, it's not how can we contribute through economic developments. So the conclusion for me was quite evident over time that I need to use my skill, my experience, my capability through a business, therefore, energy, and then to enable people to gain economic sovereignty by increasing their productivity. And that the number one thing you need is energy. That's where we started, basically.
[00:06:09.370] - Torsten
So you saw the opportunities in solar and you saw, let's say, the difference in development in Europe and your hometown, your home country. And you thought, well, let me bring that together with Kowry Energy.
[00:06:22.780] - Ndiarka
Exactly.
[00:06:23.930] - Torsten
What does Kowry stand for?
[00:06:26.120] - Ndiarka
When I say Kowry, everyone says what is owry? Because of the way we wrote it, but everyone has seen a Kowry. Kowry, normally is written with a little C. This has more muscles, right? So now you see them, people wear them as jewels. But then before the time of colonization, Africa was different empires, very, really successful empires. People know about the Manza empires, but it was a trading nation. There were people who were trading goals and different things. And then the muscle shells, the cowrie shells was the currency. Now I'm sure you are visualizing that shell.
The cowrie shell was the main currency that's extremely valuable. If you look at the ECOWAS bank node, the CFI, you have that shell in there. It was a trading, it was a currency. If you go up to Asia as well, like in Singapore, you have the cowrie in their bank node. That was really a really successful continent. The baseline of that success was trade between different kingdoms, different nations, and the cowrie shell was really important. Now, if I translate that into the 21st century, the success of nations and countries was based on economic development.
To have that GDP going up, you need industrialization, you need energy. We wanted to make the link between that successful past where trade was based in the cowrie shell with cowrie energy, with energy being now the new currency for economic development. That's why we choose the cowrie and then the cowrie shell to make the link from a prosperous past to a prosperous future.
[00:08:02.700] - Torsten
Pretty good ambition. You have a co founder, Larissa. Where did you meet? I understand you both are the founders of Kowry.
[00:08:11.100] - Ndiarka
The Kowry journey originated when I was still at at Rolls-Royce. I've had different stations at Rolls-Royce, and this originated when I was in Rolls-Royce's aerospace in Derby with two other people, so David Seddon and Abby Clayton, who I salute. I'm sure they will listen to this podcast, one in nuclear, one in the rotative business. And then I repatriated in Germany to continue the career journey on my own closer to the power system business, which is the business at Rolls-Royce, which is energy. And that where I met Larissa. As you know, she was supporting me with this. She's just an amazing, amazing person. And I think we're just a perfect match because we are 180 degree different and we're just complementary. We're just absolutely complementary. And that's what you what you need in the co-founder. So it's really, really one plus one equal two. And she was working at Rolls-Royce battery system when I met her. And then obviously before that, she did a lot in the ecosystem of startup, in the health tech, a lot. Different health tech companies, she worked and founded. And then she left everything as well. She's like, yeah, this is what I'm going to do.
A year later, when I'm like, okay, We're ready to go. She dropped as well, Rolls-Royce, and then here we go, the two of us. Now, obviously, there are other people. But that's how Larissa and I decided, okay, she have abandoned Rolls-Royce, and then we went our way.
[00:09:44.450] - Torsten
Complimentary personalities, skilled, also could be the source of clashes. How do you handle that, the very different characters?
[00:09:51.980] - Ndiarka
Actually, we've never had a clash. Well, I mean we're complementary because our skill set is so different. I think one day she put it really nicely, and I like the way she put it. We went to a really small investor's gathering in Greece, and we were introducing each another to the group. It was first my turn to explain what I do. Then she was right after me and people ask her, And you, what do you do? She said, I manage her so that she can manage the company. I'm like, that's really synthesizes how we work together. In my life, I've really rarely met people that know exactly what is in our brain, in a way. She know how I think and she helps. We are so complementary in a way that is so natural.
It doesn't make us as a company. When I say us, it's not only her. Our head of technical as well is the same, Gauram, in that everyone knows what they do. We are not working on people's toes. Then the responsibility and the accountability is really shared. So what she decides – my eyes are closed. I don't ask myself about what decision she makes. She doesn't ask herself about the decisions I make. The same with technical. We know when they make a decision, that's the right thing. I think sometimes in small company, because you're the founder, everyone expects you to make the decision. That is not how it works. That's something maybe we brought from corporate to say, look, decision making cannot rely on one person because that is extremely dangerous.
[00:11:35.670] - Torsten
You're now in the solar sustainable energy business. Of course, you mentioned it's not only solar, but you made that move into this, let's say, new industry. What are your impressions of the industry when compared to the more established and the corporate environment you worked in before?
[00:11:54.490] - Ndiarka
I must admit, when I came, it was a bit of a shock. When you're in corporate, there is this bashing about corporate internally. We are not agile enough. We need to be startup. We need to be faster. Well, I can tell you the tale of all the agile things and all the innovation we did in corporate. We need to be all like these small companies and doing this and doing that, and everything is faster out there, and particularly in the solar business, because you see the report, there is all this boom and all this innovation. You see this world, and you go into that business, and I look at it – I hear a lot of buzzwords: innovative, smart. And I look at them like, okay, I'm not sure I'm seeing that.
So if I take now specifically solar – of course, there are some innovations like digitalization, but that's not specific to solar. I don't see anything specifically digitalized or a specific innovation to solar that solar has brought that is not somewhere else. But of course, you have to leverage that what exists and is implemented in your business. The main shock I saw for me is that the ability to deliver fast or to the speed that I was expecting... I didn't find it.
I found that we have an ability to deliver faster in corporate. Then when I look at it, that's where actually we as Kowry, we met and are trying to live to that expectation – we took it as a key for us to say the differentiation for us should be an ease, our ability to deliver and to deliver fast. For that, what I see is it's all about organization as well. It is true, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, it's a tough market. You've been in Ghana, you've been everywhere. Ghana is not even the most challenging country. But then infrastructure is not necessarily where we should be moving goods. But then program managing a project from A to B, because delivering a system (whether you are doing 100 megawatt or you are doing a solar home system or you're doing a mini-grid), for me, it's just a simple program that you manage with the same component. The scope is smaller or it's bigger, but we see it's read as though you have to manage the program.
It's the same scope. You have to schedule it and you have to run it A, B, C, and nail it. And that's sometimes, from what I've seen so far, that we are a small business, so we should take it with a caveat. We are a newbie rather than a small business. We don't have the 10 years of experience. In that side of the things, I have been a bit disappointed compared to what I was expecting when I was coming into the business. From that side, we take a lot of learning, and it's also reinforced, I believe, that it's all about managing your program, because the technology itself, for me, is nothing new. So we do system integration. The technology itself is already well-defined by technology providers. We all use the same name, we all use the same component. We integrate them in a different way to meet the specific customer needs, but it's all about the delivery, and delivery is about project management.
I think that's where maybe companies need to get less technical. I think we talk about this technical, that technical, and should talk more about program managing the delivery of those projects.
[00:15:28.760] - Torsten
That's a super situation for you, right? When you can bring in the skills you have developed at, the corporate and established industry level, when you can take that now to to solar, to sustainable energy, and to sub-Saharan Africa, where you can provide a lot of value to customers.
We also like to look back with our guests at how their education led them to where they are today. So you initially studied chemistry, quality management, and business management. Why did you choose to study chemistry and business management in the first place? And how did you know, basically after school, that that's your thing, right? I think that's a big decision basically everybody has to take. And what was the process like for you?
[00:16:11.400] - Ndiarka
I always wanted to study technical. So when I So in France, the school system, you have primary, secondary, then you go to lycée, where you do your bachelor. And then when you are in the secondary school, you go to one day or two day company visit to have an idea. And I visited a technical workshop in my city town. Dutch, actually, they do PCs, connectors for aerospace and for automobile. Years after, they were my supplier when I was in business. So I went there and look at that and like, wow, this is what I want to do. I want to do technical.
As well in my city town, in Normandy, there was a Ivreux space base from the military base, BA105. And there was open days where you can go and look at the planes. And if you want to go in the military, And I wanted to be a Hunter Jet pilot as well when I saw that. So it was between those two. So you do your research, which baccalaureate you have to have so that you can do the test and you enter the military. So that was the dominant. And you have to have this baccalaureate E, it was called.
It was the toughest one. It's basically math, physics, electronic, technical. So you go to the special high school. And this class, everyone wanted to do that. We were only 16 of us. It was 13 boys and three girls, and we are still a really close small team, and we always have a WhatsApp group. Everyone in that class wanted to do that because it prepare you to go and do the test and after enter this and et cetera. At the end, maybe one was in the military. Everyone else is doing different things, IT, and I'm the only one who made it to aerospace in a different way. Some are in finance, et cetera. That was my journey to that. Then when I'm registered in university, so you have to ask for which university you want before you go to your baccalaureate. And then depending on your result, you have your first choice and et cetera. There was this one in Toulouse, they have option quality management. The other didn't. And I'm curious about it. Why do they have this? What is quality management? And the other don't. And it was early days. We're talking in the end of the '90s.
I'm like, that's not normal. They have and they don't. So I'm going to put it in my list. Curiosity, again. A lot of things I do is always about curiosity. I'm an extremely curious person. And that's how I discover quality management. At the time, there was no curriculum. So it was basically the head of quality, the director of quality of the companies around the universities or in the region that will come and teach us. It was really practical, pragmatic. You will go into their companies and you do go look see. And that was amazing for me. So that's how I discovered that. I fall in I love it. And after all, I went and did the Black Belt, Lean Six Sigma, which is really process-oriented, and I love processes, I love data. And then it continues like that, basically all through my career.
[00:19:13.160] - Torsten
You just mentioned quality In a previous answer, you already touched ground on what you as a corporate-trained person can bring to solar. So quality and durability is, of course, key to any energy system, particularly also to off-grid solar systems. What learnings can you take from jet engines and to the quality of a solar system?
[00:19:39.140] - Ndiarka
I'm so glad you asked this question because it's a topic that when I hear it, I'm so happy. You don't even know what my body is doing at the moment. Because for me, it's so core to everything. Quantity is the fundament of three things: safety, reliability, customer satisfaction. So if you don't have quality, the customer won't be happy. And that I'll put the last thing. But first of all, we talk... People say solar. Again, I say energy solution. Particularly now, you have lithium battery in there. It's a bit of safety issue. People don't ever talk about it, but I always think first, the number one thing for me is safety. So if you don't have quality, you will not have safety. If the component is defective, if it's not well installed, if it's not well designed, you will one to one affect your safety. You will one to one affect your reliability. And then the outcome of that is ultimately customer dissatisfaction. Now, for me, if you go into business, the only thing that you have to care about is a happy customer – because a happy customer is the one that pays you.
There is only one person who pays you in your business – it is not the investor, it's the customer. So that's the one that you wake up for in the morning for. So quality is intrinsically the most important thing you have to care about, in your business. So that's why I'm so passionate about it. Where I came into the market as well, is in particular in certain area in Africa where solar has had a really bad name. And we are in this. business, we have to really bring it back, because most people still believe this – and it is changing, because a lot of companies that I was commanding, those that came before us, have been doing a great job of education. I say, give me a few solar panel, and I have the light. And they're like, oh, solar doesn't work. I'm sure you have had this experience. I have it easier than those who come maybe two or three years before me because they had to face that.
People was skeptical about the solution, particularly companies, because some people flood the market with cheap solar panels. You install it and then after a few days, it doesn't work. People don't believe in solar. But it is being changed, the perception, step by step. There's still a lot of education to be made. That's why we don't talk about solar. We give you "solar energy solution" because this is never a solar panel. We don't install a solar panel. There is solar, there is inverters, there is lithium batteries. And if you go off-grid into a community, you will have a small genset. So there is an element, there is an integration, there is a reliability and a safety, and there is a quality in it. But that is really important that we emphasize that the quality is extremely paramount, particularly because in remote area, you cannot afford to have the system failing down. These are customers which have a low disposable income.
Now, it is extremely, extremely expensive to be poor. People don't know that, but it is expensive to be poor, because if you only have $10, you prioritize to pay your electricity. Instead of eating or other basic need, you pay your electricity and the electricity doesn't work – that is not acceptable. So you have to make sure that you install quality material. You have to have a quality design, you have to have a quality system integration that you can provide 24 hours at 95 % reliability, or 99 % reliability, for that system to work. That's why I'm so passionate about quality – you really, really have to guarantee that to your customers.
What we found on the ground is, and you know it and I know it, is that there is still a long way to go.
[00:23:37.040] - Ndiarka
When I was in Ghana installing tiny, tiny small solar systems, my experience was that it basically failed after a few days. For example, they disconnected one of the controllers, et cetera. And it worked better because the battery could be charged discharged to a higher level, but then the barrier was basically broken. Then it takes you 24 hours to travel there. Basically, for a 50-watt system, you can't afford to provide service for that system anymore. Nobody pays for that.
[00:24:27.280] - Torsten
Can you explain the same design that it stays where it is, and maybe even has remote service – is that an issue you tackle specifically, or are there other areas that you address to make sure that you have a good solution?
[00:24:27.310] - Ndiarka
I really love this question, because you said an important word there, which is remote solution, remote services. There are two elements for my answer to this question. One is why we can do a lot with system design. The reason education is something that we have to continue to do – a behavioral education for the customer. I will start with that first. We are ruthless with our customers. We explain how our system works, we explain what we do, when we explain what we do not do and what is their responsibility, and with the cost with it, where our responsibility stops.
So when you provide a system, we say we will provide you maintenance as an option because we hear two things, and that, I think, has been also a narrative so far to say, well, you install the system, then you can teach the community to do the maintenance. I said, the community are not specialists in this. No community is touching my system. I provide the maintenance. If the community or the customer doesn't want me to provide maintenance, I don't have responsibility, I don't have reliability. If it doesn't work, do not call me. If you call me, I come, you will pay for it.
And you have to say that straight up front. And then if I provide maintenance, you cannot provide remote maintenance. People need to stop saying, I have a gadget, I have a remote monitor. You have to have people close to your system. You cannot have someone in every single omelet. You need to be organized. This is energy.
I'll give you an example. You are in Leipzig. If you have a problem with your system, you have a number, they have remote monitoring. They see what is happening. They will send someone within 24 hours, within 10 hours, whatever the service level agreement is. That's the direction we should be going in in this market. But what we are selling in this market as an industry, particularly to investors and everyone is, no, we have a remote monitoring system. We are sitting there, we can cut it from the button, we can do this. This is not realistic and this is not durable. And that is also the reason why the off-grid is not taking off as it should take off. We need to build the footprint. If you want to build a sector, you need to have all the element of the sector.
The key of an industry is not putting an asset on the ground, it's maintaining and operating the asset for 25 years. That's why we are really, really clear with our customer to say, this is what you get, this is your OMM contract. We do OMM contract, we do it. This is how much it costs. We guarantee you that uptime because we have it in our hands. If you take it off our hands, you take it off our hands.
[00:27:09.880] - Torsten
It's what exactly Kowry is doing. We know it's energy solutions in Africa. But what's your ideal situation? What is the sweet spot? What's your ideal customer or application story?
[00:27:27.890] - Ndiarka
I say that we use the Kowry as a bridge to say we want to remind the target market, our market, sub-Saharan Africa, of its glorious past, and then they can rebuild the prosperity of that. And the baseline for that is economic development. The core purpose of Kowry is giving to the customer economic sovereignty. So if I put it in a really simple term: when we deliver a service, there is a before and after in the pocket of our customer. They use our services, they make the bottom line improve. Then we realized that to do that, the main thing is energy as an entrant. Energy is an input for us. We have the skill to do energy, but it's an input to deliver our services. We have two segments that we deliver energy services for to communities: SMEs and residential – what I call small projects that we aggregate in volume, small projects from three kilowatt peak to one megawatt as a single project. But we never do one single project. We never do one three kilowatt pick. It's always in bulk because that gives us buying power. We work with technology providers, et cetera.
So that's the target. We're talking here about residential, about real estate, affordable housing. So we're working with real estate developers for social housing so that they have straight away a solar solution that came in instead of having genset, for example, in certain countries – we're talking about providing energy solution to mechanize the agriculture value chain. That is a water solution with solar pumping, that is cold chain solution, negative chambers to freeze the fish, because in all the coasts of Senegal, Guinea, the fish get rotten because there is no cold chain solution. These are positive chambers, so 5 metric ton, 10 metric ton, 20 in container – solar-powered for the fruit and veg, because 50% of the harvest get lost. This is what we call our small solution.
Then we work with bigger EPCs, Spanish EPCs, German EPCs, and we are into the larger scale solutions. Then we have several worlds there. In that larger scale, we act sometimes as a developer, and then the EPCs do the EPC works. So that has just started coming to us now because people see our industrial capability. They look at our path rather than our Kowry little system to say, hey, you guys have this capability, and we have these big projects coming to us.
So we've partnered with those EPCs, and now we have started as well developing larger scale in collaboration with bigger EPCs, in the region as well. So one, two, three megawatts onwards. We have those two different. But the ultimate simple goal of Kowry is economic sovereignty using energy as a driver – so there is enough for our customers. Their bottom line has improved when they use our services. Small projects are our core, but then we also now do bigger projects in partnership with larger scale companies.
[00:30:47.280] - Torsten
The first column you mentioned – that's usually off-grid systems?
[00:30:52.450] - Ndiarka
Yes. That's usually because it's in this remote area. We have a portion which is on-grid. The portion which is on-grid are basically small SMEs. This is our target market, the SMEs, because the economy of South Saud and Africa are SMEs, really MSMEs and SMEs. You don't have big, big, big. You have few big companies, but the main, main core of the economy in sub-Saharan Africa are SMEs and MSMEs.
You have another small portion on off-grid, which is now ramping up, is residential and new social housing, so new developments, real estate in social housing. But then really, the big core is in rural because that's really what we set out to do: productivity in rural areas, mechanizing the agriculture value chain with cold chain solutions, water pumping solutions, before we go into mini-grids.
And that basically is a change for us because you were asking me when I entered the market, what was the difference? What we thought when we came, we're not even saying, Oh, we're going to do mini-grids. Yes, we are going to do mini-grids. But then we spend a lot of time in the last 12 months just talking to the customers on the ground in different countries, and particularly in rural settings, the target is the mini-grid customers.
The number one thing they've asked us for is water and cold chain – it's not electricity in their houses. So we shifted the priority order based on that customer feedback.
[00:32:26.300] - Torsten
You were at Rolls-Royce for almost 15 years. If you continue Kowry for the same time, what do you hope you will have achieved then?
[00:32:37.980] - Ndiarka
It was really simple. My job is Kowry. Our job as all the people at Kowry today, we know it's really simply. We are putting the foundation, so that in 15 years, in your example, there are other people leading Kowry to prepare it for the next 15 years. This continent, the countries in this continent, need to to have the foundation for a better infrastructure. There is a lot happening. We are not in the negative spin, or whatever. There is so much happening. And I'm glad you give us the opportunity to raise our voice. But there are other things happening, other colleagues doing a great job, local companies, international companies. So the future is certainly here.
But Kowry is not about when we're going to IPO, we're not going to do this. We have five values that we have set up in Kowry. We set up the values of Kowry before even we go after the customer. One of the value of Kowry is sustainability. Now, if you ask people about sustainability, they will say, rescue the planet, go green, go solar. No. The sentence for us is in 50 years, the Kowry team will be serving the grandchildren of the customer that we are serving today.
That's our definition of sustainability. That's what we are setting Kowry to do. So in 15 years, the Kowry team in there will be sitting on the podcast saying, well, this is the plan for the next 50 years, so that Kowry in 15 years will be serving other customers. That's what I have to achieve. That's my mission for Kowry. Nothing less, nothing more.
[00:34:15.690] - Torsten
Thank you so much for sharing your story.
[00:34:18.460] - Ndiarka
Thank you, it's awesome.
[00:34:20.420] - Torsten
It's been a pleasure to get a small glimpse, but detailed glimpse into sub-Saharan Africa. I mentioned to you previously, I was there for a year in Ghana, and it's wonderful that things are developing. I'm super happy that you have taken on the task to do that with your experience from corporate companies and hopefully bring sustainable energy solutions to this area. Thanks so much. All the best for you and your team. Thanks, Ndiarka.
[00:34:53.580] - Ndiarka
Thank you. It was a great pleasure. Thank you for the work you're doing. Thank you very much.
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