Christelle K.
Biography
Christelle Kwizera, studied mechanical engineering and graduated magna cum laude in 2015, one year after founding the company. During her final year thesis, she explored water purification using air-generated ozone to respond to a need of communities in the Philippines for affordable water purification devices. Christelle received trainings in geophysical surveys to locate groundwater, and became a trainer, training 7 teams in diverse African countries. The experiences of the teams she trained are documented in a peer-reviewed paper published with the Rural water Supply Network. Since 2014, the company has worked in partnership with the Ministry of Infrastructure in Rwanda and is part of the Water and Sanitation Sector Working group of the Ministry. Beyond the track record of action, Water Access Rwanda is recognized under her leadership to be an SDG innovator by UNSDSN.
Christelle has received many awards for her solutions that are environmentally considerate and improve people's lives, for example she received a Sierra Club Global Population and Environment Program Fellowship in 2014, and was awarded Foundation Chanel's Woman Entrepreneur of the Year in 2019, through INCO's competition themed around environmental sustainability that year. currently, she is recognized as a transformer by the Islamic Development Bank's Transform Fund, which is supporting her to scale the INUMA(TM) solution
