About
Our Story
In the summer of 2008, Global Cycle Solutions brought its first peripheral, an altered corn sheller attached to a bicycle, to farms and villages in Arusha, Tanzania. GCS’s peripheral device did not only shell corn 40x faster than by hand, but it also brought an affordable service that saved rural villagers from arduous manual labor. This novel implementation of a simple yet valuable technology became a powerful income-generating opportunity for the entrepreneur. Replicating this model can spawn a network of impact, creating livelihoods for thousands of entrepreneurs while providing clean, affordable bicycle-mechanized solutions to those in need.
The Need
Despite the rapid growth in technology over the past century, much of this innovation has not been adopted by or even reached the 550 million smallholder farmers and rural villagers worldwide living on less than $1/day.
Our Vision
The vision of Global Cycle Solutions (GCS) is to disseminate accessible, appropriate technology and its accompanying knowledge around the world. As strong believers in co-creation, we will work within existing infrastructures to spur community development through pedal-powered innovations.
Our Mission
Our mission is to leverage a worldwide market of over 1 billion bicycles as a driver of innovation and affordable energy. We hope to enable micro-entrepreneurs to bring the service of pedal-powered devices to their communities to meet an extensive range of needs from agricultural food processing to home appliances to battery charging.
We achieve this mission through two innovative fronts:
- Our Technology: The universal adapter we provide allows bicycles to drive a variety of appliances and machinery
- Our Dissemination Strategy: Our model enables multiple levels of income‐earning opportunities to ultimately provide the technology as a service
