UC Davis institute to help African youths tackle energy challenges

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UC Davis Institute has been chosen to host the second energy institute this summer for young African leaders who are dealing with energy challenges in their nations.

Considered the most sustainable university in the world, UCD will offer “Sustainably Extending Energy Services: A Stakeholders Approach” for the Mandela Washington Fellowship, the flagship of the U.S. government’s Young African Leaders Initiative.

Last year, UCD initiated the fellowship’s first energy-themed institute for 25 members from sub-Saharan Africa, where — according to the U.S. Agency for International Development — two out of three people have no access to electricity.

The campus is among 38 colleges and universities that will receive a sum of around 1,000 fellows for six-week summer programs in business and entrepreneurship, civic leadership and public management.

The selection of the hosts was announced only just a few minutes ago by the U.S. State Department and IREX, the international nonprofit that manage the fellowship program.

Organized by UCD’s Global Affairs, the establishment will run June 17 through July 29. Fellows will gain expertise around the design, assessment and feasibility of clean energy projects; approaches to the incorporation of renewable energy and energy efficiency policies; and an perceptive of ground-breaking policy, regulatory and consumerist approaches to energy projection and supply.

On campus, fellows will experience a living lab featuring marketable feasible projects in advanced energy-efficiency technologies, consumer behavior and demand decline, as well as generation from renewable resources to shift from fossil fuels.

Seminars and lectures will draw on the knowledge of faculty from a wide range of disciplines and some dozen UCD institutes and research centers — such as the Energy Efficiency Center, which speeds up the development and commercialization of incorporated energy efficiency solutions.

Field trips and guest lectures will render the fellows to main energy organizations and leaders focused on energy systems.