birth_place awards name known_for article_title citizenship
nigeria rolex award for enterprise in 2001 mohammed bah abba pot-in-pot refrigerator mohammed bah abba
 nigeria
mohammed bah abba

mohamed bah abba -lrb- 1964-2010 -rrb- from rural area of northern nigeria developed the pot-in-pot refrigerator i , e , pot-in-pot preservation cooling system in the 1990s , this is very simple its consisting of a small earthenware pot placed inside a larger one , and the space between the two filled with moist sand .
the inner pot is filled with fruit , vegetables or soft drinks and covered with a wet cloth .
abba , who hails from a family of potmakers , tapped into the large unemployed local workforce and hired skilled pot makers to mass-produce the first batch of 5,000 pot-in-pots .
he received the rolex award for enterprise in 2001 and used his $ 75,000 award to make the invention available throughout nigeria .
abba devised an educational campaign tailored to village life and the illiterate population featuring a video-recorded play by local actors to dramatise the benefits of the desert refrigerator .
the pots sell at 40 us cents a pair .
after the millennium several international ngos started to work on the dissemination of this technology in various african countries : practical action in sudan and humanity first in gambia and movement e.v. in burkina faso .
