More than 30 years ago, in the mountain village of Mbem in northwestern Cameroon, the moon and stars in the night sky were the only light young Jude Numfor knew after sunset. Electricity had not yet arrived in his community.
“There was one person in the area with a gas generator and a small television,” said Numfor. “When he opened it, all the children ran to his house and looked through the window.”
That memory became the spark for Numfor’s mission: to bring electricity to rural communities like his hometown. To achieve his goal, in 2006 he founded Wireless Light and Power, since renamed Renewable Energy Innovators Cameroon, and serves as its CEO.
REI Cameroon designs, installs, and maintains solar minigrids for rural electrification. Minigrids use photovoltaic technology and battery energy storage systems to generate electricity at 50 hertz. Electricity is distributed through smart meters.
In 2017 the company received a grant from IEEE Smart Village to support the expansion of REI’s minigrid operation and refine its business model. Smart Village supports projects and organizations that bring electricity and educational and work opportunities to remote communities around the world. The program is supported by IEEE societies and contributions to the IEEE Foundation.
The partnership led to the development of open-source benchmarking, a free, community-driven way to track energy use. Unlike proprietary activity meters, the system allows users, researchers, and utilities to view, customize, and verify how data is collected, ensuring transparency in billing, usage tracking, and grid management.
The support of Smart Village has been important, Numfor says: “It’s not just about money. [Smart Village] in society, it is different.”
From teen tinkerer to entrepreneur
Numfor started living electronically in 2001, after going to live with a missionary family in the small village of Allat. They use solar panels to power their entire home—an unimaginable luxury for Mbem. He says: “I could watch TV, eat ice cream and turn on the lights. “It made me wish that my brothers in Mbem had the same opportunity.”
Numfor’s curiosity about electricity was sparked when the motion sensor solar light in this family’s home stopped working. He scrutinized the call to find out why. “My missionary family told me to play with it as a toy,” he said with a laugh. “I replaced the dead battery with a motorcycle battery and was able to restore power at night.”
Jude Numfor [right] to test a rechargeable solar lamp, which was intended to replace dangerous kerosene lamps—known locally as “forest lights.”REI Cameroon
His missionary parents encouraged Numfor to study technology and engineering on his own, as none of the local universities offered solar energy education programs at the time. They built a library for him and put in it engineering, management and business books.
In 2006, armed with his new knowledge, Numfor launched Wireless Light and Power with a friend, Ludwig Teichgraber. The nonprofit aimed to replace dangerous kerosene lamps—known locally as “forest lights”—with rechargeable solar lights.
These solar lights—called “light packs”—were built locally by Numfor and a group of 11 Cameroonian youth using PVC pipes, nickel-metal hydride batteries and LEDs. Families rented lamps for a small fee, replacing full-bright lamps with solar-powered charging stations when they ran out of power. The kiosks then recharge the depleted lamps, making them available for the next shift. “The solar lamp was safer and cleaner, and it gave the children an opportunity to study at night,” explains Numfor. “People loved them.”
Between 2006 and 2010, his team replicated this model in multiple locations. But when the global financial crisis hit in 2008, donor support declined, forcing the organization to change. “We went from being an NGO to a commercial business,” he said. “That’s how REI was born.”
Building solar minigrids to serve public needs
The aim of this new company was to move away from lights and towards fully electrifying communities. The wishes of the rural people changed, says Numfor, as they now want to use their TVs, music programs and mobile phones. In response, in 2010, REI built one of the first solar minigrids in West Africa. Using locally sourced components, the prototype provided consistent power to six households. The minigrid system used 12 123-watt solar photovoltaic panels manufactured by Sharp, 16 12-volt 100 ampere-hour automatic lead acid batteries, and a Xantrex charge controller and inverter. Locally sourced wooden lighting poles were erected to distribute electricity throughout the village. REI billed each household for electricity.
“It was the right time to sell the product,” Numfor said. “Immediately people were asking, ‘When can we get this, too?'” The propaganda, grassroots growth caught the attention of global partners. Numfor is affiliated with Smart Village and in 2017, REI Cameroon received its first seed funding from the program.
With that funding, Numfor was able to grow organically and attract additional grants, including one from the US Trade Development Agency (USTDA), in collaboration with the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. REI has since expanded to six locations, providing power to more than 1,000 families and businesses. With a dedicated team of 16 people, the company operates in many regions of the country, each with unique geographic, linguistic, and cultural strengths.
“It wasn’t easy,” he admits. “I’m not an academic—I had to learn everything by doing. [Smart Village] It helped me plan the project and grow as an entrepreneur.”
Today, Numfor is paying it forward by sharing its Smart Village experience and mentoring new entrepreneurs.
Introducing the smart metering alliance
Minigrids cannot function effectively without specifying operational rules to ensure high-quality service requirements and consumer protection, while also enabling reliable and effective monitoring of the system, Numfor said. “We need to know how energy is used, detect problems early, and control the minigrid remotely,” he explains.
Existing commercial smart-meter suppliers offer limited and proprietary solutions. One major provider has left the market, rendering their technology infrastructure ineffective. “It is dangerous that the entire industry is dependent on a few companies for such important technology,” said Numfor.
In 2025, with the help of the Smart Village technical community, Numfor convened a coalition of open source energy advocates, including the Africa Mini-Grid Developers Association, EnAccess, Energy IOT, and NESL. The goal was to establish an open smart metering system that is accessible, transparent, and sustainable for all energy providers.
“These organizations work together as an Open Advanced Metering Infrastructure [OpenAMI]which is about returning control to the people who bring power,” he said.
Measuring impact
Numfor’s passion has grown from bringing light to local rural communities to lighting up his entire country. Only 54 percent of Cameroonians have electricity, according to the International Energy Agency. At Numfor, the challenge is not just technical—it’s socio-economic as well. “Electricity is the most important factor in education and economic growth today,” he said. “When you have power, you unlock everything else.”
“Electricity changed my life. Now I want to make sure that every child can grow up with that light.” —Jude Numfor
In every town where REI has installed sustainable energy solutions, small businesses are thriving. Barbershops are popular for social conversation, food vendors can store perishables, and entrepreneurs run companies like phone charging stations and small mills. “Some villages have laundry facilities now,” said Numfor proudly. “Electricity creates jobs and changes ideas.”
Still, it’s been a rough ride. It was not until 2025 that REI received official approval (license) from the Cameroonian government to produce and distribute electricity in off-grid areas using solar minigrids. This was a milestone because REI was one of the first private businesses in the country to receive such approval. “We were stuck between pilot projects and growth,” he explains. “Our projects were successful, and there was a public demand for more, but in order to grow, we needed investors who needed legal guarantees before we released the funds. Now we can grow and attract investors.”
REI plans to expand its reach dramatically, starting with 134 new towns identified through a feasibility study supported by USTDA. Their long-term goal is to electrify 760 villages across Cameroon by 2031.
While accreditation opens doors, financing remains one of REI’s biggest challenges. “A small place does not easily attract investors,” noted Numfor. “Our return on investment is less than 15 percent, so it’s not the first technology model. The real return here is the impact” on society.
He hopes to attract investors who understand that access to electricity drives education, health care, and entrepreneurship. “There are people who want to make important changes,” he said. “We just need to connect with them. When you electrify somewhere, you never know who will innovate. Maybe another kid like me, looking out the window, is dreaming.”
Finding skilled workers is another challenge, says Numfor. To address this, REI established an intensive recruitment and training process. “It used to take years to find the right people,” he says. “Now, we can identify who fits our company’s culture within six months.” Numfor’s wife, Angela Taliklong, who joined the business in 2010, is now in charge of administration and human resources.
Bright Cameroon and beyond
Numfor offers some simple words of advice to other impact-driven entrepreneurs: Keep moving.
He says: “One of my mistakes at the beginning was trying to be imperfect. “I was spending time developing prototypes instead of increasing the number of installations of our project and measuring how many communities we could electrify. You have to stay motivated. Don’t wait until everything is in order before you move on.”
That mindset, focused on resilience and perseverance, has defined his journey. Rajan Kapur, president of Smart Village, says Numfor is a “great example” of the program’s vision: “a positive and lasting impact on local entrepreneurship, local procurement, and community engagement based on the use of IEEE technology in underserved communities.”
Through the ongoing Smart Village partnership, Numfor is determined to bring light and opportunity to every corner of Cameroon, and beyond. He has already launched REI Nigeria.
He says: “Electricity changed my life. “Now I want to make sure that every child can grow up with that same light.”
From Your Site Locations
Related Topics on the Web
