With each passing day, Morocco continues to affirm its commitment towards securing a brighter future. If any doubts lingered before now, they’ll surely be quieted by the ongoing heroics of students from Rabat’s National School of Mineral Industry, who are preparing to debut a solar-powered vehicle designed for competitive team racing.
Eleadora, or “the gift of the Sun” was unveiled by the students at the campus in Rabat, where they announced their intention to enter the vehicle into the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, holding in Australia this October. The Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is a premier showcase destination for innovations in solar-powered transportation, with participants mostly drawn from universities and corporations.
After attending the Moroccan Solar Race Challenge and the Somabay Egyptian Solar Challenge with two initial prototypes named Fennec and Eleadora1 in 2017, the 16-member team had generated buzz. It also received some support from patrons like BMCE Bank of Africa, among others, funding which allowed the team to spend over a year making conclusive model improvement work on Eleadora 2. All of which has now culminated in this announcement that they are ready to take their newest model for a ride on the biggest of solar stages, effectively becoming Morocco’s first appearance at the global meet in Australia.
Renewable energy sources are a sweet and familiar subject for Moroccans. Not only are they building Africa’s tallest wind tower, but they are also building the continent’s largest seawater desalination station. Morocco already uses a solar-powered Solar E Cycle in waste collection. Talk about living in the future.
Moroccans home and abroad will be expectant of a victorious outing for the ingenious students when they go to compete in Australia. Only last month, a group of Moroccan inventors from the Moroccan School of Engineering won big at the Silicon Valley International Invention Exhibition. They took home three silver medals and six awards competing against 400 exhibitors from 25 nations who exhibited some 600 inventions.
By Caleb Ajinomoh
