In 2023, Feihan Li’s father returned from working in Zimbabwe—home to Victoria Falls but hamstrung by chronic power shortages—and told him how families relied on firewood for cooking while suffering from recurring cholera outbreaks. Curious and concerned, Feihan began researching and was stunned to learn that over two-thirds of Zimbabwe’s 16.2 million people live in rural areas, and roughly 80 percent of them lack access to electricity, a root cause of frequent cholera outbreaks.

In his biology textbook, cholera was described as “an easily preventable disease,” noting that boiling for just two minutes kills the pathogen. That simple fact became Feihan’s motivation. With Zimbabwe’s year-round sunshine and the knowledge that Vibrio cholerae dies at high temperatures, he envisioned a solar cooker—a device that reflects sunlight to cook food and boil water.

Yet commercial solar cookers posed challenges: stamped metal models were bulky, difficult to transport into remote villages, and prohibitively expensive at about 300 USD per unit. Determined to find a better way, Feihan teamed up with his classmate, Junwei Hu, to design a lightweight, low-cost version that locals could easily build and use.