Energy in the Developing World

Khanjan Mehta, Vice Provost for Creative Inquiry; Director of the Mountaintop Initiative, Lehigh University.

Over 1.5 billion people in the world have no access to electricity and a billion more suffer from unreliable and intermittent supply. While electric grids are expanding at a gradual pace, a wide array of startups and social enterprises are emerging to address energy poverty in developing countries. While some of these ventures succeed, a large number of them fail. What kinds of technological, economic, environmental, social, and political challenges do they encounter? How can we develop innovative, practical, and sustainable solutions to address global energy challenges? This fast-paced and candid talk will employ a series of mini case-studies to provide practical insights on the myriad of challenges to developing sustainable and scalable businesses in developing countries.