Kweku Anno

Who is Kweku Anno?

Kweku Anno is a Ghanaian engineer and inventor who has had a major impact on reducing organic waste pollution in Ghana.

He was first recognized as a innovative thinker and problem-solver at the 1986 Industrial and Technology Fair. He entered a contest as a solo inventor competing against teams from large academic institutions. His hydraulic machine for making landcrete blocks won third place. The block making machine doubled production efficiency, and was mass produced for the housing industry. It is still widely used today. Continuing his stream of inventions that benefited the housing industry, in 1990 he took the first prize in innovation at the Ghana Real Estate Developer's Association "Housing Innovation Fair" for his prototype house made of soil blocks and roofing tiles. Those products were the basis of his successful business selling roofing tiles. In 2008, he re-designed the Empower Playgrounds equipment that is generating power for school children in rural Ghana.

In 1996 he turned his attention to the sanitation problems that plague much of the world's population. This resulted in his invention of the "trickling filter" system which treats septic tank waste on site, in response to his concern that septic tanks were being pumped out and dumped, untreated, into the environment. In 2004, he began experiments with a revolutionary invention that would treat human waste in a "digester box" that uses Mother Nature as a model for decomposing fecal material. He tested the digester in a variety of sites, including middle-class homes, schools, and office buildings and confirmed that fecal material could be processed without emitting odors and without sludge build-up. As of 2006, he was selling Biofil Digesters and 2008 saw the official launch of his current company, Biological Filters and Composters, Ltd. As of July 2013, his company has installed over 4,500 Biofil Digesters, and the demand for his "clean and green" sanitation solution is growing.