UNLEASH

Talent uses solar energy for sugercane crushing, another is featured in UNEP and other updates

Palak Aggarwal, co-founder of The Batti Ghar Foundation’s designs Solar Cane
Palak co-founded The Batti Ghar Foundation, with her mentor, in early 2016 which work towards innovating and incubating sustainable technologies for livelihoods. With limited human and financial resources, she and her team at Batti Ghar have been able to innovate 4 technological solutions and incubated 10 grassroots level entrepreneurs who collectively serve over 10000 unserved people every year. Their first product from lab to livelihood is a sugarcane crusher powered by solar energy which was developed to replace diesel run sugarcane crushers. They have designed a brand ‘Solar Cane’ and in process of commercializing it using a leasing business model which will provide income to the last mile entrepreneur. Company has been recognized by Startup India and Startup Odisha and currently being incubated by Villgro.

Natalie Kyriacou OAM featured in United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) article
Natalie Kyriacou OAM was featured in an article by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for her contribution to environmental education and innovation, specifically through her company My Green World which has two flagship programs: Kids Corner and World of the Wild. For more information: http://bit.ly/2QPfbet

Giulia Marzetti was selected for the first cohort of Women @ EIT Leadership Course
On 9th-11th November Giulia Marzetti became to be part of the first cohort of the Women @ EIT leadership intensive course. 10 women alumni got selected from the several European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Knowledge Innovation Centres programmes, which are the largest EU Body addressing Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Technology. The course aimed at strengthening community around the several European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Knowledge Innovation Centres and fostering initiatives to promote women in STEM fields. Each participant will then organize events in her home city contributing to enlarging the community.

Cassia Moraes, Founder and CEO of Youth Climate Leaders (YCL) invited for COP 24
Cassia Moraes, Founder and CEO of Youth Climate Leaders (YCL) and Deputy Executive Coordinator of the Brazilian Forum on Climate Change will be at COP 24, in Poland as a member of the Brazilian Delegation. She will also coordinate YCL’s Delegation of 11 young people, all of each are attending their first COP as part of YCL 2018 programs. In addition to presenting in events and mentoring young delegates, she will be looking for sponsors and partners for YCL’s 2019 immersions and courses in the US, Germany, India and Brazil. Just before COP, Cassia will also be in Norway to present YCL at the Xynteo Exchange Marketplace (November 28-29).

Diana Guzmán Barraza was invited as speaker at the Global Engineering Congress
Diana was invited by Global Engineering Congress, hosted by the Institution of Civil Engineers in their historic venue in the heart of Westminster in London, UK. Over 3,000 engineers gathered during the week of the congress to discuss solutions to the SDGs. Diana called upon the entire sector to lead on climate through engineering. The previous week, at the US Green Building Council (USGBC) Annual Forward Symposium in New Orleans, United States, Diana shared her research done in the University of Nottingham (UK) to urge professionals of the built environment to study wind and sun trajectories to achieve lower energy consumption in buildings through engineering, further enhancing LEED certification processes. Earlier this year, Diana presented a poster on “Remote Sensing and Climate Action” at the 4th meeting of NASA Health & Air Quality Applied Science Team (HAQAST4) in Wisconsin, United States, to raise awareness among researchers on how data generated by NASA satellites can be used to take climate action.

After UNLEASH in Singapore, Diana visited a remote jungle village in Nepal, and taught a group of locals, with the help of a translator, how to fix the orientation and tilt angles of their existing solar panels to optimize energy output. These group replicated the knowledge in the rest of the village and neighbouring villages. Up next, this December, Diana will be joining the Mexican Delegation as Advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Mexico in the negotiation of the Paris Agreements on the 24th Conference of Parties (COP24) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Poland, where she will also address participants as speaker at the side event held by the Greenhouse Gas Inventories & Research Centre of the Korean Government.