For the last year, I've been developing a prototype musical instrument - a percussion shaker - that converts the energy from playing it into electricity. It's called SPARK and it enables people to generate electricity so they can plug in a light or charge up a mobile phone, simply through having a music jam.

In places like Kenya, where 75% of the population live without access to electricity and where I will be launching my new #ShakeYourPower project, having the ability to read at night or charge up a phone gives people the chance of a better education and access to services.

I'm a British Asian female percussionist and I've been playing on the pop music scene for over 20 years. Touring with the likes of Faithless, Spice Girls, and Dido has meant performing on some of the world's biggest stages. Madison Square Garden in New York; Glastonbury Festival in the UK - such shows require a huge amount of energy to run and also a huge amount of energy to give out as a performer. People have been asking me about the motivations behind the project and my answer is simple; for many years I have wondered whether the huge amounts of energy created from performing on some of these stages could be harnessed and used. But there is also a deeper motivation, one aligned with a changing of the collective consciousness, to help find a new way of being on our beautiful planet.

Power in the palm of your hand - the SPARK shaker. Photograph: Sudha Kheterpal

Playing music has been my life and bringing thousands of people together through the power of music is something that has always left me with a sense of purpose. Benefiting others in this way has been a huge motivation.

But last year, something shifted. Sitting in a 10-day silent retreat at Suan Mokkh monastery in Thailand, I realised that the search for the next big tour or gig would not bring me the gratification it had brought for so many years. Being there in the Thai forest, suspended in nature, so fragile and so impermanent, I couldn't help but awaken to the responsibility we all have towards our planet. It's like nature was calling and for me, music was the natural response. And so, the #ShakeYourPower project was born. Working with product designer and RCA graduate Dian Simpson, we developed SPARK and decided that while the design of the percussion shaker would be based around the shape of a flint stone, the inside would be modelled on the internal chambers of the heart, where the very foundation of this project comes from.

SPARK is powered by kinetic energy. A magnet moves backwards and forwards through the centre of a solenoid, a coil of copper wire. A current is induced in the loops of wire and each time the magnet slides through, it charges up a rechargeable battery. We are currently looking at adding other harnessing techniques to get the maximum energy for the minimum shake. After a month of testing in rural Kenya, people say that SPARK is useful because they are safer on walks home in the dark and that it gives them the means to work at home in the evenings. It is clear that SPARK will enable children and their families to be safer by eliminating the need of kerosene for light for example, and by providing light for women and girls in areas where rape is a huge problem. And through mobile phone charging, SPARK will enable children and their families to be connected to services where currently they are not, in a free of charge, sustainable and clean way. The aim of #ShakeYourPower is to distribute the finished product to all the schools and homes I visited on my month trip to Kenya – that's over 3,000 children, and then on to more schools in Kenya, Africa and other countries. Alongside this, a huge emphasis of the project will be based on the development and distribution of educational assembly kits. SPARK will allow school children to learn the technology around the shaker by building the component parts themselves and subsequently their own power. Children studying science, technology, engineering and music will all benefit from the application that these kits show. The aim is to first distribute these kits to as many schools as possible in rural Kenya and it's great to imagine the impact this will have if 75% of Kenyan children can study at night. #ShakeYourPower is a project is about taking clean energy to places in the world without electricity. But it is also a project about connecting people and bringing them together through music. It's about interdependence and togetherness and an invitation for us all to rise up as guardians of nature, and to bring power to those who need it.

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