“I could remember vividly the panic. That moment was something I don’t want to revisit,” Dundas said. “When the light went, he was struggling to breathe, and you could hear him struggle to breathe, just a two-month-old baby,” he told Global South World .

With no backup generator at the hospital, Dundas raced home to fetch an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) from his desktop computer. The small device kept the oxygen machine running long enough to stabilise his child. “We could have lost him,” he recalled. “Thank God he’s now six years plus.”

That terrifying night became the turning point. As a trained innovator with a passion for problem-solving, Dundas began asking himself questions like “what energy source is abundant, reliable, and accessible within seconds? As an innovator, I was always thinking, what can we use that is readily available, that in zero to ten seconds, you can have electricity, just like that?” His answer was salt water .

Dundas started experimenting with seawater, which makes up 70% of the earth’s surface and contains minerals such as magnesium. The principle, he explains, is not far from a battery. “You have the plus and the minus, and it creates charges,” he said.

Over several years of research, from 2018 through 2020 and beyond, he refined a system that uses salt water to generate safe, instant electricity. His goal was to create power that communities could depend on when the grid failed.

In countries like Sierra Leone, where Dundas lives, blackouts are common and hospitals often lack backup systems. His invention, still under development, is aimed at bridging that electricity gap, ensuring that no family experiences the terror he once faced with his son.

For generations, rural households in Tunisia have used olive waste for cooking, heating, and animal feed. Now, Khelifi’s startup, Bioheat, is refining this age-old practice into a modern, scalable energy solution.

"It's very simple. Imagine producing energy and making money from waste, or as we say in Tunisia, 'kammama,'" said Khelifi. "The key is development - knowing how to turn something worthless into something valuable."

The innovative energy source has already caught the attention of business owners looking for cost-effective and eco-friendly solutions. Selim Sahli, who owns a guest house in Bouargoub, has incorporated olive waste-based logs into his heating system.

"Logs are more practical - not just from an ecological standpoint, but also financially," Sahli explained. "Wood prices have risen, and my expenses have dropped by 30% since I started using these logs. It's a much more economical option."