Promoting universal access to energy in Africa
Grace W. Kpan, is a PhD student in Applied Mathematics with a degree in power engineering and a master's degree in renewable energy. She has set up Light On, an initiative of young Africans, aimed at promoting excellence and especially entrepreneurship in key areas that are a lever for the economy in West Africa so they will be able to face communities’ issues like the access to energy.
Grace’s passion for energy access for all was born from the realization that despite Africa’s richness, many Africans still lack access to energy.
In October 2021, in Abidjan, Light On will organize the first edition of the Regional Energy and Sustainable Development Fair (SEDD - Salon de l'Energie et du Développement Durable) with the support of the African Development Bank.
The inititative, held every two years will deal with different themes related to energy and sustainable development in West Africa. In October the focus will be on access to energy for West African populations, under the theme "Innovation in the service of Energy to improve the living conditions of the populations."
The objectives of the SEDD are to promote excellence and local know-how in the field of energy and to inform and sensitize the population.
Light On has launched the SEDD for innovation which is a competition for start-ups / SMEs and student projects. The particularity of the SEDD for innovation is that the participants benefit from a mentoring before the final and a support after the event.
More than one billion people in the world, including 600 million in Africa, still do not have access to electricity. In Africa, only one out of three people has access to electricity, which is half the number in South Asia, the second lowest ranked region in the world. And the picture is even bleaker when we look beyond access to the reliability of electricity sources, as revealed by a study conducted by the World Bank.
How can we not be concerned when we see that the access rate has only increased by 5 percentage points every ten years, while the population has jumped by 29%? If nothing is done to radically remedy this situation, the continent can kiss universal access to electricity goodbye in the 21st century.
It is in this context that the association Grace has set up Light On, an initiative of young Africans, aimed at promoting excellence and especially entrepreneurship in key areas that are a lever for the economy in West Africa. Legally constituted as an association since 2021, Light On's mission is to stimulate young people and give them the means to fully integrate into the entrepreneurial ecosystem in several spheres of their countries to be key players in the post-covid-19 economic recovery. Grace is convinced that Africa cannot be built without its youth and that it was time to arm them and offer them opportunities to deploy their genius. Her motto is: “The one who feels uncomfortable is the one who has to change things”.