Anna Sidana, Founder and CEO of One Million Lights, with a friend in Kenya who uses a kerosene lamp to light her home.

When the sun sets everyday, millions of homes around the world go into darkness.  With all the advances in technology, we should be able to offer a clean and eco-friendly solution to these families.

My first goal is to distribute 1 million lights to further children’s education and to improve lives of people in rural communities around the world.

My story was inspired by a school in rural Rajasthan, India.  My father started this school 45 years ago as an elementary school with five children.  Today, the school provides education through high school and it is recognized as a school of excellence in many subjects. In 2003, I visited this school and decided to do something for the children of this school. Hence, I began my journey to One Million Lights.

I was fortunate to discover a social venture founded by Stanford students and focused on developing solar powered lighting to replace kerosene lamps.  Light, I realized, was one of the most basic of all needs. However, lighting was still missing for most of the families in that village in Rajasthan. A farming community; every member of the family worked as a farm hand during the day, leaving no time for the children to study.

I continued to tell the story of this school and today, 5 years later, I have been fortunate in acquiring a donation of 15,000 solar lights from a socially conscious leading technology company in Silicon Valley.

In August of 2008, I personally distributed the first batch of 250 solar lights to the children of this school and set myself a goal of distributing One Million Lights.