UAE: How Zayed Sustainability Prize finalists are impacting lives in refugee camps, rural, remote areas

The top contenders claim that winning the prize, which will be declared this month, would help them impact the lives of millions

Ashwani Kumar

Published: Mon 2 Jan 2023, 8:01 PM

A social enterprise is on a mission to promote sustainable development in every African rural community through renewable energy, another firm is aiming to extend the duration of power availability where the resource is limited in refugee camps and a third company is providing solar solutions for remote locations in Africa and Asia – these are the three finalists of the Zayed Sustainability Prize 2023 in the energy category.

Sharing their inspiring stories with Khaleej Times, they claim that winning the prize to be declared this month would help them impact the lives of millions.

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Empowering women with clean energy, cooking fuel

Operating with sustainability and female empowerment at its core, Cameroon-based Monique Ntumngia founded Green Girls Organisation (GGO) in 2015 after realising that an electricity shortage leads to a lack of education. Her social enterprise uses artificial intelligence and geospatial technology to identify the specific clean energy problems that affect African rural communities.

Through GGO, she teaches women and girls how to generate solar energy as well as biogas from waste to use as a cleaner and affordable source of cooking fuel.

GGO uses an innovative algorithm, the MNKB92 model, to map the energy needs of different rural communities and select the most appropriate solution based on the collected data – either cleaner cooking fuel in the form of biogas or solar power for their homes.

“In 2015, I quit my job to launch GGO to use modern technologies such as AI to identify specific clean energy problems that women and girls face in African rural communities. With the data collected, we provide solutions relevant to the community and for the community,” the self-taught entrepreneur said.

To date, the company has trained 4,500 women across 68 villages in building and selling solar lamps, installing and maintaining solar panels, and constructing and operating biodigesters in three African countries. GGO plans to expand its operations to 17 more countries across Africa.

Ntumngia noted that winning the Prize would enable GGO to impact 20 African countries, improving the lives of at least 1 million women and girls across 100 additional African rural communities for the next 36 months.

Delivering power where it’s needed most

NeuroTech, a Jordanian energy management company launched in 2018, has helped ensure a fairer distribution of energy in refugee camps and reduced energy bills for aid agencies. This was achieved by separating high-priority loads – such as medical devices and lighting – from low-priority loads, which include air-conditioning and electric heaters.

“By separating the loads, beneficiaries are guaranteed to receive life-saving energy first, with the energy going to low-priority feeders based on availability. The load limits of the energy feeders are defined based on a smart algorithm, which makes the system smart enough to update the limits while safeguarding people’s needs,” Heba Asad, co-founder and CEO, NeuroTech, said.

NeuroTech delivered electricity to more than 1,000 Syrian refugees in the Azraq Refugee Camp in Jordan as part of its pilot scheme, reducing pressure on the camp hospital’s respiratory ward, which used to receive an influx of patients when power was only available at certain times of the day. Now patients can now be treated at any time.

“Our work with refugee camps started in 2020, when we participated in the Jordan Energy Hackathon, which addressed how households can become more energy efficient and reduce their electricity consumption through innovative approaches to monitoring and managing electricity consumption,” she said. “When we asked children about the biggest challenges they faced due to the lack of electricity, they immediately said their education. Although they could sometimes study by moonlight, this was not feasible during the winters. Now with our system installed, the children can study in the evening without fear of power outages.”

Asad, a 31-year-old entrepreneur, said that winning the Prize would enable her company to help even more people by funding the development of an interactive application encouraging both refugees and local communities to be more energy efficient.

Powerful solutions for everyone

Germany-based Solarkiosk Solutions, founded in 2011 by Andreas Spiess and GRAFT architects, designs, manufactures and operates solar solutions for remote locations in Africa and Asia that do not have access to electricity. Its E-hubb solar-powered kiosks are now being used in shops, schools, hospitals, sports centres, cafés and offices.

CEO Thomas Rieger believes the technology has the potential to transform underserved rural off-grid communities, and to win over its sceptics.

“It has been challenging to convince donors and investors that it is possible to build such projects and achieve self-sustainable growth in the long run. So, we took it upon ourselves to implement and operate hundreds of projects. We kick-started economies in rural off-grid communities, breaking the poverty trap in neglected, underserved and underdeveloped areas.”

To date, the company has designed and implemented around 300 rural projects in 15 countries in Africa and southeast Asia, including refugee camps in Bangladesh, Jordan and Ethiopia. It has positively impacted the lives of millions of people and created thousands of jobs, mostly for women.

The company uses community-based production partners where possible, also providing work for local manufacturers. Rieger added that winning the Prize would allow Solarkiosk to pilot their newest project, The Pulse, more effectively.

The Pulse aims to expand the use of innovative solar-powered kiosks to power industries as diverse as agricultural processing, water purification, and electric vehicles.

“We are looking to trial The Pulse at feasible sites in Rwanda before expanding globally. The impact on communities would be even greater if we were able to win the Prize as we could add thousands of beneficiaries as well as create new jobs. We believe this is a game changer for rural development through electrification, powered by the sun.”

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