Illac Diaz: Starting the revolution of light

By: Bong Lozada - 11 years ago

Flicker. A girl curiously watches the solar light bottles distributed to their community by the My Shelter Foundation Inc. CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON

MANILA, Philippines—He might just be the torch-bearer at the end of Super Typhoon Yolanda’s darkest of tunnels.

After containing the gift of light in a plastic bottle, actor-model-social entrepreneur-environmentalist Illac Diaz is set to start his “light revolution” in areas that Yolanda ravaged.

Diaz and his crew at MyShelter Foundation, together with Philips Philippines, would begin their mission to install their Solar Night Light Project in Leyte and Samar and the bunkhouses that the “Yolanda” survivors currently call their stomping grounds.

“Thousands of families without energy access what we did was light up the bunkhouses with our technology,” Diaz said Tuesday at a press conference at The Fort.

A product of two well-known institutions in the United States, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Diaz hopes what they would do in the localities in the areas could be one of the catalysts to the normalcy of the areas that Yolanda destroyed.

Diaz said with the feasibility of his innovations, what they teach to the people can easily spread and that could help more people in the most minimal of efforts.

“You can replicate this anywhere, it can be done by ordinary people, and it can easily be built,” said Diaz.

His light post comprises a large soda bottle, a simple circuit board and a solar panel. “Filipinos love to tinker around and with that ability they can easily replicate this technology,” he added.

Diaz’s “sachet solar”-powered light post cost around P3,000, a very cheap alternative to patented lamp posts that could reach P100,000.

Before going on the full-scale lighting operation of Leyte and Samar, to be conducted for the next six to nine months, Diaz and his group first lit up a church in Palo, Leyte, where Ecumenical services were conducted for those to be buried, and the road leading to the cemetery.

Philips Philippines rewarded the Ivy Leaguer with the help and resources to make his project a reality after besting other ideas that could be help the survivors of Yolanda.