Register now for the virtual awards ceremony Wednesday, June 18, at 7 p.m. Eastern Africa Time.
A solar-powered bike that dries farm produce on the go, an AI-powered malaria diagnostic tool and a vertical garden for urban homes are among the hardware innovations from eight African ventures selected to join the African regional 2025 ASME Innovation Showcase (ISHOW).
The virtual ISHOW Africa awards ceremony takes place on June 18, where three of the eight ventures will be selected to join the 2025 ISHOW cohort and receive a share of $30,000 in grant funding and technical support.
The ISHOW Africa ventures provide affordable, sustainable hardware technology solutions to agricultural, energy, healthcare, and transportation challenges. They are:
Agrivovle Limited (Nairobi, Kenya) for its “Agrivolve Balcony Units” –compact, self-watering vertical farming systems designed for urban households, enabling users to grow fresh, chemical-free vegetables at home
Baini Technologies Limited (Kampala, Uganda) for its “HemoSave Device” – a solution that offers real-time and accurate quantification of maternal blood loss during cesarean section births, enabling healthcare providers to detect postpartum hemorrhage early and administer life-saving treatments
CIST East Africa Industries Limited (Kisumu, Kenya) for its “CIST-Second Generation Bioethanol Fuel Micro Distillery System” – a solution capable of converting waste cellulose biomass including sugar cane bagasse and water hyacinth into 95% ethanol, blended and stabilized as a cooking fuel and transport energy
GreenWize EV (Nairobi, Kenya) for its “GreenWize EV” – a solution to convert end-of-life internal combustion engine motorbikes into eco-friendly EV motorbikes through a system for battery swapping and open infrastructure for hybrid solar-powered fast charging
H2Energies (Rusape, Zimbabwe) for its “Hydrostove 1.0” – a solution using water and solar power to produce hydrogen gas as an affordable, clean cooking fuel for hard-to-reach rural communities, intended to reduce indoor air pollution and deforestation
I-Dress (at CAMTech Uganda-Mbarar, a University of Science and Technology) for its “I-Dress” solution – an affordable, sterile wound dressing made from gauze infused with honey and olive oil, designed to prevent infection and accelerate healing for post-cesarean wounds in low-resource settings
MariTest Africa (Kampala, Uganda) for its “MariTest” – a non-invasive, AI-powered diagnostic device for rapid malaria detection and monitoring designed for frontline health workers in remote settings without access to lab facilities
TFS Cargo Bicycles (Benin City, Nigeria) for its “SunHaul Bike” – a solar-powered, electric-assisted cargo bicycle designed for navigating rough rural terrains and equipped with a heat pump for cooling or drying farm produce and a solar tracker for optimized charging on the move.
The three winners from ISHOW Africa will join six others from ISHOW India and ISHOW Americas. Together, they will form the full 2025 ISHOW cohort and participate in an intensive bootcamp focused on product design, engineering, and strategy.
Hosted by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), ISHOW connects social hardware innovators with engineering experts and support networks to help scale their products sustainably. More than 250 ventures across 35 countries have received support through the program since its launch.
ASME ISHOW judges and facilitators include experts in research, sustainability, mechanical engineering and product design, manufacturing, startup financing, supply chain, and business strategy, representing industry, nonprofit organizations, and academia. These subject matter experts provide technical and strategic guidance based on ISHOW’s five key pillars: customer/user knowledge, hardware validation, manufacturing optimization, implementation strategy, and impact. For more information, visit https://www.asmeishow.org.
Follow the journeys of ISHOW alumni including GenH, PlenOptika, Himalayan Rocket Stove, SAYeTECH and others here.
Learn more about ISHOW’s global impact in this dynamic dashboard. For details on the finalists, the virtual awards, or how to register, visit thisishardware.org.
This article is adapted from a press release by ASME ISHOW. Engineering for Change is a part of ASME’s Engineering for Sustainable Development division.
