To people living in the developed world, electricity is mostly taken for granted. But to a family living in an African village, it’s miraculous.
It not only lets them continue to work, cook or study once the sun sets, it creates safe drinking water and irrigation systems to stop wholesale starvation due to drought. It also provides energy for computers for schoolchildren and keeps vaccinations cold to prevent disease. This is happening across the globe because the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), a nonprofit organization, has designed sustainable energy solutions at an affordable price.
Robert Freling, executive director of SELF, will discuss his work at 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 4, in Graham Chapel. This Assembly Series program is being co-sponsored by the student organization Engineers Without Borders, the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurship and the African Public Interest Law and Conflict Initiative.
Under Freling’s stewardship, SELF has facilitated solar energy projects in more than 15 countries. In addition to making life easier, cleaner and more productive for the more than 2 billion people living in abject poverty, the solar-powered energy solution also is good for the environment and creates sustainable growth for the future.
Freling began working with SELF in 1995, serving as a Chinese translator and interpreter to create a 1,000-house solar electrification project in rural Gansu, China. He took the helm in 1997.
Freling earned a bachelor’s degree in Russian studies from Yale University and a master’s degree in communications management from the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California. He is fluent in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese and Indonesian.
Frehling’s talk will serve as the keynote address for the annual Olin Cup Award ceremony which will follow immediately in Graham Chapel.
Seven finalists are in the business plan competition for entrepreneurs sponsored by the Skandalaris Center at WUSTL. $75,000 in grants will be awarded at the ceremony, followed by a reception in the Danforth University Center Commons.
Posterboard displays from the finalists also will be on display at the reception.
For more information about the lecture, visit assemblyseries.wustl.edu, or call (314) 935-4620. For information about the Olin Cup, visit sc.wustl.edu.