As a part of Cisco’s “Plan for Possible,” our environmental sustainability technique, I usually emphasize the significance of resilient ecosystems. An important facet of resilient ecosystems is making certain communities have the abilities, instruments, and assets to help the event and deployment of unpolluted power. Energy resilience will not be solely about infrastructure; it’s basically about individuals. Communities can profit from clear power options, akin to microgrids and photo voltaic storage, however a talented workforce and modern applied sciences are wanted to maintain these initiatives.
Many sectors, together with manufacturing, know-how, and building, want expertise that may assist enhance effectivity, cut back utilization of uncooked supplies, decrease waste, and assist defend the atmosphere. In reality, a 2024 report from LinkedIn signifies that such expertise “are likely to become increasingly important as the industry confronts the complexities of overhauling the power grid.”
By investing in coaching, know-how, and partnerships, we may help to construct in resilience from the bottom up and assist individuals to take management of their power future.
Recently, we held a dialogue on this subject with three nonprofits funded by the Cisco Foundation, and right here’s what they needed to share:
GRID Alternatives
Founded in 2001, GRID Alternatives is the most important nonprofit installer of unpolluted power applied sciences within the United States for low-income households and communities. GRID has skilled over 33,000 people in photo voltaic set up by its workforce improvement applications and provides job seekers the expertise and networking alternatives they want, whereas serving to native photo voltaic corporations fill their ranks.
Erica Mackie, P.E., Co-Founder and CEO of GRID Alternatives, shared, “When we first started, we weren’t thinking about workforce development because the industry was nascent. People would come to us and say, ‘I need to volunteer with GRID Alternatives because I applied for a job, and the employer told me I don’t have any experience.’ Our workforce development programs respond to community members asking us to provide training and saying, ‘We are trying to get jobs and need the experience to get those jobs.’ We now provide training modules in a lab that also includes hands-on experience at an actual installation. We’ll also do wrap-around services like how to write a resume or how to interview. We now have a graduation ceremony where employers will come, and we’ll have stations set up for each of our trainees to demonstrate their craft and what they learned in the installation basics training.”
Kara Solar
Kara Solar started in 2012 as a dream to construct a solar-powered boat. They now help a thriving community of photo voltaic transport and power hubs in Achuar territory within the Ecuadorian Amazon and are starting to copy the mannequin with extra communities throughout the Amazon area. By optimizing designs, offering technical coaching, constructing native provide chains, and facilitating financing, Kara Solar permits Indigenous communities to entry, implement, and handle photo voltaic transportation and power techniques in their very own territories, on their very own phrases. Crucial to the mannequin is in-depth native capability constructing. Kara Solar has skilled Indigenous technicians to put in and preserve neighborhood microgrids that save gasoline, cut back carbon emissions, and help Indigenous communities in constructing native financial energy and preserving rainforest ecosystems.
Oliver Utne, founding father of Kara Solar shared, “We often say that the Amazon is a cemetery of failed projects. Because businesses will come in, install solar or some other kind of technological solution, tell the local people don’t touch this, and then they leave. The DNA of our organization from the very beginning was about co-design; it was about how do we get the right heads together that have not been together in the past? Our training method is all about learning by doing hands-on, and increasingly peer-to-peer-training because now there is this really solid core of Indigenous technicians who are training other people.”
Solar Sister
Founded in 2010, Solar Sister is the world’s first scalable, women-led renewable power distribution mannequin, addressing power and local weather challenges by offering important companies and coaching to girls to construct companies in their very own communities. Currently lively in Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania, their purpose is to help girls entrepreneurs in increasing clear power distribution in last-mile communities. They present Solar Sister Entrepreneurs (SSE) with enterprise teaching, mentorship, a examined product pipeline, and entry to their native Solar Sister Sisterhood teams for networking, help, and encouragement. There have been over 11,000 SSEs since their founding.
Olasimbo Sojinrin, CEO of Solar Sister shared, “Our model has been rooted on the adult learning principles, where 70% of learning comes from hands-on experience, 20% comes from peer-to-peer learning and 10% learning from classroom instruction. We have invested in curriculum development which we deliver in those classroom settings once every month, and the curriculum covers essential topics for starting and running a clean energy business. The training is done in a “sisterhood” group which supplies the platform for girls to share experiences and be taught from one another. As particular person enterprise house owners, they share experiences, focus on challenges and options, and help one another. By combining hands-on expertise from their every day enterprise actions, sisterhood group peer-to-peer studying, and month-to-month trainings; we empower girls to thrive and construct a sustainable clear power enterprise.”
Cisco’s worth chain advantages from resilient ecosystems, each financially and ecologically. It is in our shared curiosity to help innovation by investing in clear applied sciences and serving to to create sustainability-related jobs by constructing expert workforces. That is why we’re so pleased with the work our Cisco Foundation grantees are doing to Power a More Inclusive Future for All.
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