A tailor smiles as he works at his sewing machine beside a Sun King solar lamp
GCS – Together we're improving life

Global Cycle Solutions is now a part of the
Greenlight Planet Family!

Our Journey So Far

  1. 2018 Onwards

  2. 2017

    GCS Tanzania Limited officially becomes a Greenlight Planet Company!

    GCS opens 26 Sun King shops across the country.

    Sun King home solar kit with three lamps and a solar panel
    Sun King products laid out at an outdoor sales event
  3. 2016

    GCS Founder Jodie Wu is awarded Clean Energy
    Education & Empowerment (C3E) Award in International Leadership

    GCS brings the first Sun King EasyBuy Products to Tanzania.

    Clean Energy Education & Empowerment (C3E) logo
    Portrait of GCS founder Jodie Wu
  4. 2015

    GCS is selected for the Energy and Environment Partnership (EEP)
    Round 10 grantee

    Energy and Environment Partnership (EEP) logo
    A GCS agent demonstrates a solar lamp to a family
  5. 2014

    GCS is selected to participate in the first round of
    Energising Development's Results-Based Financing (RBF)
    Fund for pico-solar in the Lake Zone of Tanzania.

    A community gathers outdoors as a solar lamp is held up for demonstration
    Sun King solar lamp on its stand
  6. 2013

    GCS wins the Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Exploration Grant to
    develop Labour-Saving Innovations for Women Smallholder farmers.

    Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation logo
    A woman smallholder farmer sits beside her cattle pen
  7. 2012

    GCS Founder Jodie Wu is selected as 2012's Forbes' 30 under 30 in Science.

    GCS orders their first container of Sun Kings.

    Jodie visits Greenlight Planet's HQ in Mumbai, India.

    Forbes 30 Under 30 logo
  8. 2011

    GCS sells their first Sun Kings in the Tanzania market.

    GCS Founder Jodie Wu is selected as a 2011 TED Global Fellow.

    A GCS agent talks with villagers outside a thatched house
  9. 2010

    GCS Founder Jodie Wu receives her first Sun King and takes it back to Tanzania.

    GCS Founder Jodie Wu is selected as a 2010 Echoing Green Fellow
    and is also voted Bloomberg BusinessWeek's America's
    Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs.

    GCS Tanzania Limited is registered as a local subsidiary in Tanzania.

    Sun King solar lamp with its battery pack and switch
    Echoing Green logo
  10. 2009

    GCS wins second place at the Nane Nane Agricultural Exhibition Fair.

    GCS incorporates as Global Cycle Solutions, Inc. in Massachusetts and first
    products are locally manufactured in Arusha.

    GCS wins the 100K Business Plan Development Track Award and Audience
    Choice Award.

    A GCS agent talks with villagers outside a thatched house
  11. 2008

    GCS is an Executive Summary Contest Finalist for MIT's
    100K Business Plan Competition.

    First prototype is deployed in Tanzania, validating business potential.

    Jodie starts developing GCS' first product as part of MIT's D-Lab Design Class.

    Jodie goes to Tanzania for the first time with a pedal-powered maize sheller.

    Jodie Wu laughing beside a bicycle fitted with the pedal-powered maize sheller
    Farmers shelling maize on a tarp