Smart Villages

Off-grid energy takes centre stage at Asia conferences

Stories /

Ahead of the next Smart Villages workshop focusing on the ASEAN region, we (Dr Heather Cruickshank and Molly Hurley-Depret) traveled to Manila to attend two recent conferences focusing on Asia and energy: the International Off-Grid Renewable Energy Conference and Exhibition  (IOREC) and the Asia Clean Energy Forum 2014 (ACEF), held 16-20 June at the Asian Development Bank  in Manila, Philippines. […]

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WR2: Smart Villages in East Africa – Arusha Workshop Report

Workshop Reports /

The workshop held in Arusha, Tanzania from 2 to 5 June, 2014, was the first in the series of six major international workshops planned to be held in Africa, Asia and Latin America over the period 2014 to 2017 as a core component of the Smart Villages Initiative (www.e4sv.org). The organising partners for the Arusha workshop were the Cambridge Malaysian Education and Development Trust

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East Africa Regional Workshop

Workshops /

The workshop in Arusha explored the East African/Tanzanian environment for village energy, local case studies, challenges and opportunities, with a view to formulating policy recommendations for policymakers, funders, NGOs and other stakeholders the region. An important part of the workshop, and indeed the whole Smart Villages initiative work programme, was to gather evidence from existing projects that have provided

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Cambridge workshop report: New technologies for off-grid villages: a look ahead

Stories /

15 January 2014 The purpose of the workshop was to introduce the Cambridge Smart Villages Initiative (SVI) and bring together leading researchers in the UK to discuss the current landscape of energy production, use and efficiency in rural communities in developing countries, as well as scientific developments and technologies that might be influential over the

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“To give people electricity, to me, is like giving them medicine”

Stories /

The Africa-EU Energy Partnership recently held its Second High Level Meeting and, according to SciDev.net (“Africa awaits an energy revolution”), the discussions in the corridors are focusing on off-grid energy, a welcome development. Coordination and partnerships were chief concerns among industry leaders and policymakers alike.  Bringing energy to rural areas of developing can have positive impacts on

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Woman farmer: Land ownership in Africa “the preserve of men”

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On the surface, the facts are startling. According to Farming First, a coalition of farmers, engineers, scientists and industry, women[lightbox full=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaiban/6866495548/”][/lightbox] constitute up to 80% of Africa’s smallholder farmers and are produce around 90% of its food. Key issues in the northern Ugandan context, the focus of the article published by Thomson Reuters Foundation, relate to issues of

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Innovative off-grid engineering in motion

Stories /

A recent article in the Guardian (“Bright ideas for the developing world: cheaper, superior lighting design“) has highlighted the emerging realization that technology works best when suited to the local context and more often than not, it is the innovative end- user in developing countries who ingeniously adapts off-the-shelf technology. This understanding has transformed the efforts of simple

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[:en]Offgrid Energy Forward Look Workshop[:es]Cambridge Forward Look Workshop[:fr]Cambridge Forward Look Workshop[:]

Uncategorised /

[:en]The purpose of the workshop was to bring together leading UK researchers to discuss emerging technologies for the sustainable production and use of energy in rural communities in developing countries, and to take a ‘look ahead’ at scientific developments and technologies that might be influential over the next 10 – 20 years. It was held

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Our Supporters

Uncategorised /

The Smart Villages project, originally based at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford in the UK, was established by the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC), and the Cambridge Malaysian Education and Development Trust (CMEDT). Key partners in the project were the national science academies and their networks, together with Practical Action and The Energy

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