Sipho Mlambo, Koketso Mokoena and Bonkebazukile Mnotoza traveled from South Africa to the U.S. after winning the grand prize in the 2014 National Youth Entrepreneurship competition, sponsored by 3M South Africa.

The students' cool invention started with the sun. In South Africa, nearly everyone walks around with an umbrella to provide shade, the students explain. That sparked an innovative idea: What if people could charge a battery at the same time? The students' idea is to mount solar panels on the umbrella and wire it to a battery to power LED lights when the load-shedding strikes.

3M Company issued this content on 2015-12-30 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 2015-12-31 18:52:51 UTC

Original Document: http://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/Newsroom/Full-Story/?storyid=72363559-7d6b-45d0-a853-4de41a0c55c9