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 an 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 utilisation of the "trickling filter" system to treat septic tank waste on site, in response to his concern that septic tanks were being pumped out untreated into the environment. In 2004, he began experiments with a "digester box" vermifilter that uses earthworms for decomposing fecal material, similar to vermifilters being produced in Australia and New Zealand, but using a porous concrete slab as the filtration substrate. 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 (Biofilcom). As of July 2013, his company has installed over 4,500 Biofil Digesters.
Anno's Biofil digester was featured in the October 2012 "Reinvent the Toilet Fair" in Seattle, Washington, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He held an academic appointment at Bentley University [1] as a Visiting Research Scholar. He spoke at the July 2013 Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC) International Conference in Kenya [2] describing how the Biofil Digester imitates nature's way of processing fecal material.[3]
Anno holds a BS in mechanical engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and began his career working for Volta Aluminium Company then State Construction, before launching his own engineering company. He is currently the managing director of K. A. Anno Engineering Ltd. and of Biological Filters and Composters Ltd.
Anno is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and has served as a counselor in the presidency of the Accra Ghana Lartebiokorshie Stake and as bishop of the Odorkor 1st Ward. Anno has worked with Rotary International on programs to repair schools in Ghana and install Biofil Digesters to improve sanitation facilities.[4] Anno founded the McCarthy Hill School with his wife, Lydia Sarfo Anno.[5]