CladLight, a startup company in Kenya has launched the first wearable jacket targeting motorbike owners in East Africa. The company said the aim of the initiative is to reduce the incidence of road accidents involving motorcyclists in Kenya.
The founders said signals are transmitted from the motorbike to the smart jacket to show the direction the biker wants to turn using radio waves.
Being its first type in the world, the smart jacket is also fitted with a tracker by use of GPS that allows companies owning the motorbikes to know the location of the bikers.
Founded by brothers’ Charles Muchene and Joseph Muchene, CladLight hopes to sell about 10,000 smart jackets in the next four months and hopes to raise over 10 million shillings for the venture.
“We are not even ruling out the possibility that once we have the product ready we will license it to a person who can manufacture it better and at a cheaper cost. If someone can do it better and cheaper than us all possibilities are open,” said Cladlight cofounder Charles Muchene.
He said the company is in talks with one degree an NGO operating on the solar charging space in Kenya.
“We hope to expand to the neighboring countries soon as soon as we have rolled out in Kenya. The main problem we have faced is in securing a patent continent wide is that the fees are too high but we do hope with the Kenyan rollout as well as increased investment we can also secure that,” Charles said.
