John Magiro
John Magiro is a Kenyan renewable-energy entrepreneur who turned a childhood fascination with rivers into a life-changing power solution for his community. Growing up in Murang’a County without grid electricity, he dismantled old radios to learn how dynamos worked and, after finishing secondary school with a D- grade in the 2011 KCSE, built his first turbine from scrap metal and a bicycle dynamo. That prototype lit three homes and became the blueprint for Magiro Hydro Electricity Ltd., incorporated in 2016.
Today the company operates two run-of-river mini-hydro plants (34 kW and 54 kW) on the Gondo and Irati rivers, supplying stable, 24-hour power to more than 600 households, four schools, and 40 small businesses at about half the national utility tariff. The scheme has displaced an estimated 1,200 tonnes of CO₂ by reducing kerosene lamps and diesel generators. Customers pay via M-Pesa, and a smart-meter pilot launched in 2024 lets them top up as little as KSh 20 for evening lighting.
Magiro’s impact earned him KSh 16.1 million (≈US $150,000) in seed funding from the Jack Ma Foundation’s Africa Business Heroes competition in 2020 and a spot on Business Daily’s Top 40 Under 40 list. He is now scaling a 300 kW plant and training local youth in turbine fabrication, proving that innovation, not exam grades, can power Kenya’s green future.