Sankaran Ramalingam, WISE Senior Research Fellow, University of Waterloo
It is laudable to have a mission and a clarity of purpose to deliver the fundamental physics and Material design innovations that would pave way to the next set of devices to handle Energy Access Challenges. But the solutions must be adopted in the cultural context of the way people live their lives. The key is to have a deep supply chain expertise to provide solutions at both a price point and performance point that are sustainable.
In the wake of the above trajectory, it will make sense to explore an economic model that supports energy supply as well as creation, by households at the grassroots that is scalable and replicable besides distributing economic wealth better and being sustainable from a people-profit-planet perspective. Modalities of involving the corporates’ managerial expertise to integrate innovative marketing and financial modelling as well are also brought out.
In addition, the model brings into focus that it can bring in socio-economic benefits such as, livelihood, carbon emission reduction, poverty alleviation, maternal and child health, women Empowerment etc., and fits very well with the mission of AE4H.