Bacteria powered batteries

As the winner of its Breakthrough Innovator award for "appropriate technology," a team of microbial fuel cell engineers at Lebone Solutions--Aviva Presser Aiden, Stephen Lwendo, David Sengeh, Zoe Vallabha, Hugo van Vuuren, and Alexander Fabry--have tackled a major problem: the lack of electricity available to the half-billion-plus people who live in Sub-Saharan Africa.

As such, the team has leveraged research showing that energy can be harvested from bacteria and has created cheap batteries capable of producing enough power to light LEDs and charge cell phones.

Pictured here from left to right are Aiden, van Vuuren, and Lwendo.