NYU Abu Dhabi team shines with solar plan

A team of students from Abu Dhabi including Neil Parmar, a business reporter for The National, has won a global business case challenge that aims to illuminate 1 million households in Africa through solar-powered lamps.

From left: Muhammad Awais Islam, Madhav Vaidyanathan, Songyishu Yang and Ruey Ting Chien made up the NYU group which was one of three winning teams at the Hult Global Case Challenge. Lee Hoagland / ThShow more

A team of students from Abu Dhabi as well as Neil Parmar, a business reporter for The National, has won a global business case challenge that aims to illuminate 1 million households in Africa through solar-powered lamps.
The former US president Bill Clinton announced that Mr Parmar and four second-year students from New York University's Abu Dhabi campus won in the energy track of the Hult Global Case Challenge.
The annual contest tackled global poverty this year by targeting real-world issues in the fields of energy, housing and education.
The competition is organised by Hult International Business School, which awarded a US$1 million (Dh3.6m) prize that will be shared by the charities SolarAid, Habitat for Humanity and One Laptop per Child and used to implement the three winning concepts.
"The fact that these young folks from five different countries could come together and create an intellectual team that could operate against anyone is just a small foreshadowing of what's to come [from NYU in Abu Dhabi]," said John Sexton, the president of New York University.
The NYU group was one of three winning teams competing among more than 4,000 applicants vying to be included in this year's challenge. Judges in the final round included Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and microcredit expert, as well as Michael Treschow, the chairman of the multinational consumer-goods company Unilever.
Students from Hult's campus in Dubai also advanced to the global finals in New York in the competition's housing track.
However, they lost to their rival campus in Boston. Students from Carnegie Mellon took top place in the education track.
The students from NYU in Abu Dhabi conducted on-the-ground research in Africa while creating a model that would sell solar lamps to rural residents and offer after-sales support.
They also pitched a plan to tap the skills of local "fundis", or repair technicians, and promote a pay-as-you-go technology that would make a large solar lighting system with up to four lamps more affordable to rural residents.
"They [residents] are the ones who will actually purchase it, own it and cherish it," said Muhammad Awais Islam, an NYU Abu Dhabi student from Pakistan.
"I really believe that a charity is not a solution," added Mr Islam, 21. "The rural people of Africa need to be the architects of their own development."
Madhav Vaidyanathan, 21, initiated the team's participation in this year's challenge after working in rural areas near his home in India. Songyishu Yang, 20, of China, and Ruey-Ting (Gary) Chien, 19, of Taiwan, were also members of the team, while Ramesh Jagannathan, professor of chemical engineering at NYU in Abu Dhabi, served as the team's faculty advisor.
"Our students' success emerges from their extraordinary intelligence, imagination, perseverance and commitment to humanity, and terrific support from faculty, staff, and alumni," said Al Bloom, the vice chancellor for New York University's campus in Abu Dhabi.
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