The 3rd Youth Energy Academy 2021
11-17 October 2021
Virtual Meeting
The third Youth Energy Academy (YEA) was organised by the Regional Resource Centre for Asia and the Pacific in collaboration with the Sustainable Energy Youth Network (SEYN), Yunus Thailand, and other partners with the support from Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS). YEA gathered 20 young women and men connecting in six teams, from five countries for an innovative programme that combined theoretical and technical virtual sessions and tours with practical, in person, do it together activities. The week considered the concepts of decentralised renewable energy technologies and their contribution to address energy-related challenges in communities. This year, YEA also awarded a small grant prize of 1000 euros to support one of the teams’ project ideas.
On the week from 11 to 17 October 2021, YEA participants discussed various aspects to co-design, organise, and build small- scale solar energy systems with the goal of fostering leadership and a can-do attitude for youth-led projects in communities. With support from YEA Alumni Mentors on-site, participants engaged different tools and exercises to understand the real problems of communities, explore solutions, design business models, and look into financing and mobilising resources to implement their project ideas. The workshop challenged participants to work as a team, be creative and try new things without the fear of failure. Virtual tours to projects in the vicinities of AIT helped teams to gather insights (business model/challenges/success) from real projects implemented in communities.
On the last day, participants were invited to pitch their refined project ideas using the tools learned during the academy and competed to win an award. With a jury panel including practitioners from GIZ, C40 Cities, Yunus Thailand, and Grameen Shakti, the Pico Streamers team from Pakistan was awarded the prize for their project on the Design and Implementation of Pico-hydro Turbines in Utror Valley, Pakistan.
