Jun 15 2016
Smart Villages today announces finalists in the second annual Smart Villages Energy Innovation Challenge. Building on last year’s success, this year’s competition challenged aspiring young East African entrepreneurs to come up with an idea for a social business powered by off-grid energy. Social businesses are financially sustainable and also deliver positive social impacts to the …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/smart-villages-announces-finalists-2016-energy-innovation-challenge-east-africa/
May 30 2016
On average, 60% of the population across the 15 countries that comprise the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) is based in rural areas. Rural electrification rates in the region remain extremely low and estimates suggest that, for the region as a whole, only 19% of the rural population has access to electricity. Traditional …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/smart-villages-west-africa-accra-regional-workshop-report/
Apr 11 2016
[:en]On the stage of the Lighting a Billion Lives Convention in Delhi India, Smart Villages has announced Naturetech Infra as the winner of the Smart Villages Off-grid Energy Impact Competition for India. Applications from off-grid energy entrepreneurs across the nation were assessed on impact, level of project development, sustainability, innovation and replicability. Naturetech Infra was …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/smart-villages-announces-naturetech-infra-winner-2016-off-grid-energy-impact-competition-india/
Mar 17 2016
[:en]Smart Villages is pleased to announce the launch of the second annual Smart Villages Energy Innovation Challenge. Building on last year’s success, this year’s competition challenges aspiring young East African entrepreneurs to come up with an idea for a social business powered by off-grid energy. Social businesses deliver positive social impacts to the end user …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/smart-villages-launches-2016-smart-villages-energy-innovation-challenge-east-africa/
Sep 30 2015
This report summarises the findings of the Smart Villages Initiative’s high-level workshop on off-grid village energy in East Africa. Co-hosted by the Ministry of Infrastructure, Rwanda, the workshop brought together 47 key stakeholders from East Africa and the United Kingdom to share the findings of the Smart Villages Initiative’s East Africa engagement, to review the …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/high-level-workshop-off-grid-village-energy-east-africa/
Sep 18 2015
Amidst the stunning background of Terrat, a Masaai village in remote Northern Tanzania, members of the Smart Villages team spent the weekend of 22-23 August, 2015 engaged in an extremely productive dialogue event with representatives of village level energy initiatives from Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Uganda. The event was organised at a time when …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/east-african-masterclass-workshop-report/
Jul 31 2015
Opinion pieces from experts tackling the idea of energy as a catalyst for sustainable development – health, food security, education gender equality, governance, security and employment. Smart Villages: New Thinking for off-grid communities worldwide comprises 16 essays written by scientists and leading thinkers from around the world. 1.3 billion people worldwide still lack access to …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/book-of-collected-essays-from-world-experts-released/
Jul 27 2015
[:en]Smart Villages presents 16 essays by leading scientists and thinkers, providing policy makers, donors and development agencies concerned with rural energy access with new insights on the barriers to energy access in villages in developing countries – technological, financial and political – and explores opportunities and efforts to overcome them. The book describes the personal …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/smart-villages-new-thinking-for-off-grid-communities-worldwide/
Jul 18 2015
This policy brief summarises key gender issues associated with rural energy access for development and establishing smart villages. It draws on a more detailed technical report (Welland, 2015) which identifies the reports and papers on which this review has been based.
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/smart-villages-and-gender/
Apr 30 2015
The Smart Villages Initiative, working with its local partner Practical Action Consulting South Asia, held a workshop in Kathmandu, Nepal on 10th April 2015. The aim of the workshop was to learn lessons from Nepal’s experience of micro/mini-hydroelectric schemes for off-grid rural communities and associated initiatives to stimulate productive enterprises which could be shared with …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/smart-villages-in-nepal-kathmandu-workshop-report/
Apr 28 2015
The Smart Villages Initiative together with its local partner, Practical Action Consulting South Asia, held a workshop in Kathmandu on 10th April 2015 to consider off-grid energy systems in Nepal. The workshop focused on Nepal’s substantial experience of micro/mini-hydro schemes, and on initiatives to stimulate productive enterprises enabled by the availability of sustainable electricity supplies. …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/findings-from-the-nepal-smart-villages-workshop/
Mar 16 2015
The Smart Villages Energy Innovation Challenge, launching today, challenges young East African entrepreneurs to form teams and come up with imaginative ways of distributing or implementing novel or existing energy technologies for off-grid villages. Each team should include one engineer or scientist. The teams with the best entries will win a spot in the Cambridge …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/energy-innovation-challenge/
Feb 04 2015
This ‘State of Play’ ‘technical report provides a review of the literature relating to the issues around provision of electricity to off-grid villages in 2015. It summarises key challenges associated with the provision of electricity to off-grid villages, and views set out in the literature on the opportunities and required framework conditions to address those …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/electricity-off-grid-villages-overview-current-state-play/
Feb 02 2015
Innovation competitions for new technologies and business models are one tool used by policy makers in a range of contexts and countries to help businesses in new fields overcome practical barriers blocking progress between successful pilots and commercialisation. This brief note discusses competitions relevant to African off-grid energy and how they could be designed and …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/role-innovation-competitions-off-grid-energy-africa/
Jan 30 2015
Summary This report summarises the information presented at, and conclusions arising from, the second major international workshop of the Smart Villages Initiative. The workshop took place in Kuching, the capital city of Sarawak, Malaysia, on the campus of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), and marked the beginning of a 12-month programme of engagement by the Smart …
Permanent link to this article: https://e4sv.org/kuching-workshop-report/
