72 study lights delivered to partners in Haiti, India and the DR Congo

From a workbench to three countries

Every light in this program starts the same way: a student intern at a workbench, a 3D-printed case and a handful of parts that total $5.17. As of October 2026, interns have built 72 solar study lights, and all 72 have been delivered to three partner organizations in three countries: 42 to Brighten Haiti, 15 to Loksadhana in Maharashtra, India, and 15 to Malaika in Kalebuka, near Lubumbashi, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The partners

Brighten Haiti, 42 lights. The group brings solar power to schools, hospitals, civic buildings and families, runs Solar4Schools for rural and underfunded schools, and trains Haitian solar apprentices, per Brighten Haiti.

Loksadhana, 15 lights. A charitable trust that began work in 1982 in Chikhalgaon, in the Konkan region of Maharashtra; per Loksadhana, it runs a school opened in 1987, a skills center and two hostels for about 200 students.

Malaika, 15 lights. Founded in 2007 in Kalebuka, Malaika runs a free school for girls that opened in 2011, a community center and dozens of wells, per Malaika.

What 72 lights add up to

By our estimate, a light is used about 6 hours a day, which works out to about 432 learning hours a day across the 72 lights: 252 in Haiti, 90 in India and 90 in the DR Congo. Separately, about 100 students have taken part in 4 hands-on STEM workshops where the team teaches solar energy and how the light works.

Who receives a light

Flash Forward does not choose the students. Each partner already works in the schools and communities, knows the households, and decides who receives a light. The foundation provides the lights free of charge.

Seventy-two lights is a small number next to the 655 million people who lived without electricity in 2024. But each one is a student who does not have to stop studying when the sun goes down, and that is the point of the program.