These 8 Inspiring Founders Ensure That Earth Day Is Everyday

Reducing greenhouse gases to mitigate climate change has also been a focus for Driko Ducasse, who graduated with an MBA from Chicago Booth in 2021. Driko was born in Haiti, but raised in the U.S. He would visit Haiti every summer, and noticed a big difference in the standard of living between Haitians and those living just two hours away in Miami.

“While the comparison of Haiti to the US is like comparing apples to oranges, we must not forget that apples and oranges are both fruits, so we should see some similarities between the two,” he contends. “However, even when we look at the country that shares an island with Haiti, Dominican Republic (DR), the disparity in the standard of living between the two countries is massive. Haiti has been developing much slower than the DR for a very long time.” The disparity inspired him to start a company that would support the development of Haiti one community at a time.”

The company had to be environmentally focused because although Driko appreciated the beautiful mountain ranges, the rainforest, and the beaches of Haiti, he also witnessed the excavation of those mountains, the depletion of those rainforests, and the pollution in an ocean that was once so blue.

After a successful early career in the insurance industry before heading to business school, Driko decided to invest his energy and ideas into Alina Eneji, a solar energy developer that is redesigning how to provide energy to customers in rural areas. The companies objectives are to increase the electrification of Haiti using clean and renewable sources of energy, to boost economic activity through the supply of a reliable source of energy, and to reduce Haiti’s dependence on external sources of energy.

The two years at Chicago Booth were invaluable to launch the venture. “We got started by testing the idea through the equivalent of an incubator at the University of Chicago. We received open and honest feedback from a group of smart people, while simultaneously piloting the idea with 30 households.”

“It took a village,” Driko says. “It was with the guidance of fellow MBA candidates, as well as Alums and professors at the university, industry experts, and many others that the first pilot was executed successfully and exceeded expectation in the KPIs measured; speed and cost of deployment and reliability.”

The goal for Aline Eneji is to supply 100,000 households in the poorer parts of Haiti with electricity within the next 5 years. “This will help bring many of those households out of poverty, explains Driko Ducasse. “We plan to do this by focusing on what has made us successful so far; focusing on optimizing returns for all stakeholder and building a good business with sound fundamentals.”

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