IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 12

Entrepreneur Viewpoint

by Deepak Divan

Team SoULS Wins US$100,000
in the IEEE Empower a Billion
Lives Global Competition

T

wenty-three teams from around
the world have been competing in the IEEE Power Electronics Society's (PELS's) IEEE Empower a Billion Lives (EBL), a global competition that is crowdsourcing the
deployment of clean, sustainable, and
innovative solutions to one of the biggest challenges facing us today-severe
energy poverty for 3 billion people,
including 1.1 billion who live off the
grid, with average incomes of lower
than US$2 per day. For many of these
communities, a traditional grid extension is not economically viable and can
result in significant increases in new
carbon emissions. New solutions are
needed to address the dire problems of
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPEL.2019.2948751
Date of current version: 17 December 2019

energy poverty for these families and
communities, including approaches for
improving digital and financial inclusion, and their livelihoods. The competing teams were divided into two categories: 1) a centralized utility model and
2) a decentralized model, with assessment taking into account technology,
social impact, and business model.
The competition attracted more
than 450 teams from 70 countries. Each
team started the journey and went
through a rigorous process, including
an online round, a regional competition (in Shenzhen, China; Chennai,
India; Johannesburg, South Africa;
Seville, Spain; and Atlanta, Georgia),
as well as field testing and validation
within their target communities. Approximately US$230,000 was paid
to the regional winners to help them

prepare for the finals. After this long
process, 23 of the regional winning
teams from around the world came to
Baltimore, Maryland, to compete in the
EBL global finals. The EBL finals were
held 28-29 September 2019 in Baltimore, Maryland; they involved presentations by the teams to the judging
panel and poster presentations to the
broader group of IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition attendees. The global final judges included
Nana Asamoah-Manu (International
Finance Corporation), Jelena Popovic
(University of Twente), Mark Dehong
Xu (Zheizang University), Szilard Liptak [Georgia Institute of Technology
(Georgia Tech)], and EBL Global Chair
Deepak Divan (Georgia Tech).
The winning teams (Figure 1) also
presented their solutions to attendees

FIG 1 The EBL winning team members with the global final judges at EAW in Baltimore, Maryland. (Source: EBL.)

12

IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE

z December 2019



IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019

Contents
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - Cover1
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - Cover2
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - Contents
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 2
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 3
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 4
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 5
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 6
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 7
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 8
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 9
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 10
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 11
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 12
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 13
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 14
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 15
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 16
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 17
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 18
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - 19
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IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - Cover3
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2019 - Cover4
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