Desire to make a positive social impact
By Lindsay
Since around sixth grade I have had a desire to make an impact, I wanted to change the world, to leave a mark and do good.
To me social impact is an individual’s actions that can have an impact on the well-being of a community or an ecosystem. Since around sixth grade I have had a desire to make an impact, I wanted to change the world, to leave a mark and do good. I had a teacher that inspired me to want to save the manatees. From there on I had a passion for volunteer work. Then in college I thought I was going to be a marine biologist and I changed from wanting to save the manatees to saving the sea turtles. I didn’t end up as a marine biologist and while I did study sea turtles for a semester I haven’t saved them…yet. I think of that desire to make an impact now as I am on the verge of leaving for South Africa. Where for the first time since I was an undergrad I am embarking on a mission for good. With my history of wanting to save animals you may think I am going to South Africa to save the sharks or maybe elephants or lions. But I am going to South Africa to work on a project with microgrids. An energy solution that was mostly foreign to me until I joined this class, and while I am still not an expert, I have learned a lot in the couple of months leading up to the trip.
Access to electricity and modern energy sources is a global problem. Of the world’s 7+ billion people, more than 1.2 billion do not have access to electricity. Nearly twice that number lack access to safe and reliable energy. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, more than 620 million people lack access to electricity, and current population growth rates outpace growth in energy access. Even as I write this if you Google “power outage, Johannesburg” there is news of a widespread power outage from a day ago. Many share a vision that future communities (residential and commercial developments, university and industrial campuses, military installations, and so on) will be self-sufficient with respect to energy production and will adopt microgrids. A typical microgrid portfolio includes solar and wind resources, gas-fired generation, demand-response capabilities, electrical and thermal storage, combined heat and power and connectivity to the grid. Advanced technologies such as fuel cells may also be included.
Make no mistake I also look forward to going on a safari, something I have wanted to do since I wanted to save the manatees. But I also hope to be able to make a small difference in the brief time we are there. I look forward to working on our consulting project and working with the client company to answer questions and begin to hopefully provide some solutions and find a way to make microgrids more accessible and financially feasible for companies in Johannesburg and beyond to other parts of Africa. I can’t wait to get there and continue the social impact mission I have had since I was younger.