Young Energy Innovator with Nurudeen Issa

An Energy Idea Pavilion; A showcase of Ideas for Cleaner Fuels

The Energy Institute Young Professional Network Nigeria branch partnered with the Strategic Women and Youth Institute, official EDUCATION PARTNERS of Nigeria International Energy Summit (N.I.E.S), to host the Youth Idea Lab in Abuja, Nigeria, on the 27th of February, 2022, - the 3rd of March, 2022. This Youth Idea Lab captured, showcased, scaled, and measured the ideas of six (6) outstanding young energy innovators in Nigeria at a national and international level during the Summit.

Hear what one of our innovator, Nurudeen Issa, Chief Executive Officer of SiriusX-Energy, has to say in regards to his involvement in the Youth Idea Lab and running his startup in Nigeria.

Could you tell us more about your background and how you got started in the Energy Sector?

First of all, I love to refer myself as an energy leader and climate activist with dynamic experience in energy innovation and climate-related activities. I am also known as the Chief Executive Officer of Sirius-X Energy, a clean energy startup located in the northwestern region of Nigeria with the vision to improve access to clean energy technologies in Sub-saharan Africa. But academically, I am a final year student of Mechanical Engineering at Bayero University Kano. I’m passionate about the pathways for Sub-Saharan African countries to a just and equitable energy transition for a sustainable future. My passion for positive impact got me engaged in extra-curricular activities on campus. I’m presently the president of The Energy club at Bayero University, Kano, and the secretary-General of the National Universities Engineering Students’ Association (NUESA), a wing of the Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE). Due to my outstanding academic performance as an undergraduate, I’m a beneficiary of the petroleum technology development fund (PTDF) undergraduate scholarship. I’m currently undergoing ten monthly fellowships at Student Energy, a global youth-led organization empowering young people to accelerate sustainable energy. I’m one of 60 fellows across 25 African countries at the Africa Fellowship for Young Energy Leaders. I got involved in energy space in 2019 during my 300L. Firstly, I know how important information is in the energy space, which made me follow different energy organizations, energy influencers, and NGOs with energy-related activities.

What does your Company do?

Providing a solar wind hybrid system to households and business

How did you start your Company?

It all began as a project idea in my third year of study in 2019 through a group assignment I led. After that project, I invested more in doing research till April 2020, when I started putting my research into several applications. I believe being a student never hindered me from starting: I brought in a business developer to brand the business model. Then by March 2021, I registered the business name, Sirius-X Energy. My startup, Sirius-X Energy, was incubated by Nigeria Climate Innovation Center in collaboration with All On Energy. The business secured seed funding in September 2021, and this funding helped us to start implementing our idea. By 28 February 2022, we finished developing the first prototype of the product. I will end with this note; we are still in the lab to ensure we launch into the market with maximum efficiency of this product.

What challenges did you have to overcome at the beginning of your journey?

Running a company as an undergraduate is challenging, but the dream, vision, and a purpose driven life keeps me going. During my penultimate year, I had a busy time - due to academic programs, extra-curricular activities, and simultaneously working on my startup, I was successful based on how I applied time management. In addition, I faced financial instability - lack of finance was a challenge at the beginning of the journey; imagine someone from the bottom of the pyramid background and running a startup at the undergraduate level. Having a driven mindset to pursue my goal conquers any adversity faced. Financial instability cannot stop me from keeping on.

What is unique about your business?

We are bringing a breakthrough innovation into the Nigerian market. Our competitors in the renewable energy sector in Nigeria are mainly into solar energy products, design, and installation. As a solution provider, we intend to unleash into the energy space with a different narrative - by developing an innovative vertical axis wind turbine. It is an innovative device that uses both solar and wind energy interchangeably. The main breakthrough of the device is that of the converging nozzle; it concentrates the wind flow by making it laminar, thereby increasing the wind velocity from the inlet to the outlet to have high-efficiency power output. Furthermore, we created a mobile app to regulate and allow users to have access to various self-service options, such as the online store, maintenance requests, weather conditions, customer care service, and many more functions.

What have you enjoyed most about starting your own company?

In between developing an idea and implementing the tools towards achieving it is memorable. The ability to use the tools life presented to me and bring my ideas into reality gives me intense happiness.

What are the next steps?

Developing our prototype was so exciting. However, ensuring that we attain the maximum power efficiency of the product is our main target before launching into the Nigerian market space