Pavegen is a clean-tech company, that installs kinetic walkways to convert foosteps into off-grid electricity and personlised data. The electricity is used to power lighting or to store in batteries for later use. The company has implemented more than 200 projects in 36 countries including in the Abu Dhabi Airport with plans to work with Saudi Arabia’s NEOM project.

According to a statement from Khaled Abdel-Ghani Suleimani, chairman of the board of directors of Wadi Makkah Ventures Company, there is a possibility of implementing Pavegen’s technology in the city of Makkah to contribute to the process of providing clean energy and collecting the data needed to use it to facilitate crowd management.

“[We aim] to invest in local and international startups that provide services and technologies to improve and develop the quality of services in the Hajj and Umrah sector,” said Suleimani.

Pavegen’s founder and chief executive officer Laurence Kemball-Cook said: “We are incredibly excited to work with Wadi Makkah Ventures Company, alongside Pavegen’s major contracts recently closed in the local market, the support of Wadi Makkah will provide us  will be invaluable as we scale up operations in this region.”

Wamda recently recorded a podcast with Kemball-Cook about Pavegen. You can listen to it here