Meet Anthony Mutua, the Tech guru behind the Shoe that Charges Mobile Phones

Anthony Mutua is a young Kenyan Electrical Engineer, innovator, design expert, entrepreneur, and the brain behind the shoe that charges mobile phones. He is also the Founder and the CEO of Am-utua technologies, Greatest Wearable Technology and the Founder and Chairman of the Anthony Mutua Foundation.

Anthony Mutua: Early life and Education

Born in 1988, in an average Kenyan rural setting with no good electricity and a poor road network, Anthony Mutua had a really tough time growing up. From his early childhood life, he had a disability with his speech that made him stammer. Despite his stammering challenges, he had an easy time with his peers as his confidence and people skills sparked from an early age. Anthony Mutua’s main passion was to positively impact the lives of people around him. His main aim from a tender age was to come up with a great innovation that would improve livelihood and this developed into an interest in electricity and electronics.

Against all odds and challenges when growing up, Anthony Mutua excelled in his academics, and from a young age proved his intellect and vast knowledge. In 2007, he enrolled at The Mombasa Polytechnic University College to pursue professional courses in Engineering, Applied Sciences and Business Studies, At Mombasa Polytechnic, Anthony Mutua was involved in various social and professional bodies, including the Engineering student society (where he was chairman). He was also part of exhibitions at all trade fairs and innovation conferences, where he received recognition for his great innovations.

His innovations

At 24 years old, Antony’s name was a trending topic in the tech space in Kenya when he exhibited his shoe phone charging innovation. The idea behind the Charging Shoe was conceptualized and birthed from the fact that people had to walk for a long distance, looking for a phone charging point’ Anthony Mutua’s desire was to reduce this and he thought, “What if people could save the energy to walk and charge their phone instead?”

The Charging Shoe invented by Anthony Mutua has an ultra-thin chip of crystals with the ability to produce electric energy under pressure. The energy is stored and used for charging phones and other small electronic devices. The Chip is designed into a shoe sole that can be moved from one shoe to another, it is dust and waterproof extending its lifespan up to 8 years.

The Anthony Mutua Charging Shoe is an invention that has made harvesting electricity possible and this is applicable in two ways. One, by use of a cable connected to the sole of the shoe which taps energy that runs directly into your phone, making charging while walking possible. Two, the chip has a storage capability that allows users to charge after walking or running.

Apart from having a great innovative tech Mind, Anthony Mutua is a renowned entrepreneur, leader and philanthropist. He is the Founder of Hatua Technologies, A company that leads in the production of two main products, including a vibration-based mobile phone Charging Shoe and wireless cap chargers. Some of the future upcoming innovations of the company are house lighting doormats and electric generating tiles that can generate enough electricity for lighting, including, security and street lighting, highway and bridge lighting. This, he says, is achievable by the same Charging Shoe chip concept.

He is also part of the Twain Technologies (A Kenyan based Tech Firm that focuses on offering solar water pump solutions), where he is the technical supervisor and adviser on innovation matters.

He is the CEO of Greatest Wearable Technology aside from being the Founder and Chairman of the Anthony Mutua Foundation, which is a non-profit organization based in Kenya

Recognitions and Awards

The Hutua mobile phone charger has been recognized among the top 40 African startups on show at the DEMO Africa 2013 event held in Nairobi. The Anthony Mutua Charging Shoe has also been referenced in the Google Founder Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen’s book The New Digital Age.

Among his numerous awards are; A second prize during the innovation competition at the Head of State Summit held in Kinshasa, The SME Product of the Year and Overall Innovative Product, 2012’ from the Kenyan labour trade fair held in Kisumu, Kenya the Best Innovation Award from the Innovation Exhibition in Kenya, and, The Best Innovation from Africa Aitec in Nairobi. He has also been recognized among Africa’s top 100 influential youths, that is, 2016.

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