Kevin Warnock

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BioLite stove charges cell phone while cooking

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BioLite stove that cooks food and charges a cell phone (photo from BioLiteStove.com)

BioLite stove that cooks food and charges a cell phone (photo from BioLiteStove.com)

This BioLite brand stove produces a tiny amount of electricity that is enough to charge a cell phone or run an LED light.

About five years ago I was a judge for the business plan competition at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at the University of California at Berkeley.

The winning team had a technology that would produce electricity when placed into a flame. Their plan was to sell in the developing world a product for about USD $10.00 that cooks could use to charge their cell phones. I don’t know what became of that company, or if the BioLite stove uses the same technology.

I had a long talk with the founder of the company at Berkeley both before and after the winners were announced. I recall that the technology was developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. I was pleased with myself because I predicted this team would win, and they did.

I learned about the BioLite stove on TechCrunch, an AOL blog that covers the technology industry.

Written by Kevin Warnock

July 19th, 2011 at 5:00 am