Water Treatment Firm Quenches Thirst in Kenya’s Arid, Rural Areas

Samuel Kinyanjui, a 39-year-old mechanical engineer who manages a solar water treatment company, made the error of entering into business partnerships in which he lacked the necessary knowledge.

“When I started, I engaged in contracts that I’m not a professional in, and I lost money. I also engaged with unclear business people who were after their selfish interests,” he says.

But years later he mastered the skill of “sticking to his line of expertise, verifying before engaging into contracts and also seeking advice from those with more experience.”

And he works in the water desalination industry, which removes minerals from saltwater or borehole water.

After leaving a lucrative position at Geothermal Development Corporation (GDC), where he had been designing geothermal systems for use in irrigation, crop drying, greenhouse heating, and fish ponds, Mr. Kinyanjui founded Water Kiosk Africa.

He worked at Davis & Shirtliff before to joining GDC, where he developed a passion for the water industry. When he pursued further education, he discovered that the water and renewable energy industries were more in line with his interests.

“I picked a lot of expertise from my former employers. Apart from technical experience, I also learned soft skills; budgeting, staff management, and customer retention, among others,” he says.

Despite attempts to persuade him otherwise, he was resolute about leaving. In order to get the business going, he began looking for partners.

Water Kiosk Africa was founded in 2018 when Mr. Kinyanjui met one of his current partners at a conference in Nairobi.

“We did a desalination unit demo project in July 2018 in Kitengela, Kajiado using our savings to showcase the products and another one in Wasini Island for trials on getting drinking water from the sea,” Mr Kinyajui says.

Although the system was technically sound, it did not make financial sense because there were no rewards.

“At the start, things did not flow smoothly as I had expected. The first four years were full of difficulties in terms of finding the right partners, the right products, and getting rural communities to accept our products. We made many mistakes and learned a lot from the two projects. We improved the desalination systems,” says Mr Kinyanjui.

Raising finance is one of the most challenging components of being an entrepreneur. To establish the business, Mr. Kinyanjui and his partners had to take money out of their savings.

“My biggest breakthrough was getting a partner who was willing to risk in a big way. Together, we could make mistakes and combine our strong areas in business development and selling, and were able to sell the idea to clients,” he says,

They bring in German-made equipment. The majority of the water in Kenya, according to Mr. Kinyanjui, is unfit for agriculture or use in human or animal consumption. Electricity is the largest expense in purifying saline water for drinking.

“One of them (solutions) is using solar and wind energy,” he says. Over the years the business has grown. “We treat boreholes that are condemned due to contamination and salinity. Our work stretches to northern Kenya, Somaliland, Zanzibar, and Tanzania,” he says.