Our Story
The story of Kyaro began when Sudi Muli started his career as an occupational therapist in 2010. As he worked, he found he was frequently limited by what equipment was available in Tanzania. Over the following years, he built his own devices to fill the gaps, but wished there was a way that assistive devices designed for the needs of his patients could become widely available.
In 2018, Sudi connected with Colman and Eamon through the Jamii program at the Twende Center for Social Innovation. Together, they designed the first iteration of the multipurpose wheelchair for use at Jaffery Academy Special Education Needs unit in Arusha.
Twende
After the program, Colman began developing the multipurpose wheelchair full-time. He distributed five chairs to villages across Tanzania to collect feedback. As he spoke to families and revised the design, he found a huge unmet need for assistive devices other than wheelchairs.
Feedback Rounds
Other Tech
Starting in 2019, we began working with people from across Tanzania to develop new assistive devices that would fill other common needs, with the goal of making Kyaro a hub for all assistive tech options in Tanzania.
Arusha Workshop
Early in 2021 we joined SIDO (Small Industries Development Organization) through its incubation program, which provided us with space to set up our own workshop. We opened our workshop and hired our first technicians that March.
Since summer 2021, we have partnered with Olin College of Engineering to bring students to Tanzania. These students worked with us to launch our new website and design new manufacturing processes for our products.
Summer volunteer program
Today
Kyaro now employs 13 people in Arusha. We manufacture about 50 assistive devices every month. As we move into our third year, we look forward to rapid growth as we make assistive tech available to more of East Africa.
