The double Tech revolution in? Africa

The double Tech revolution in Africa

Charlotte Aubin Charlotte Aubin

Charlotte Aubin

Founder @ GreenWish Group | Climate Smart Solutions Provider, Entrepreneur, Investor, Board Member

发布日期: 2017年12月24日
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I was a successful investment banker until the financial crisis opened my eyes the terrible consequences of the financial industry excesses. I didn’t feel consistent with my values anymore and decided to finance real economy with positive environmental and social impact. The economist Lord Nicholas Stern, gave me inspiration in his Climate Change Review in 2006: “There is another way of seeing the crisis: that changing our old fossil fuel-based for a new low-carbon footing could provide the stimulus needed to bring the world out of its current economic downturn and fuel long-term growth, while avoiding the risks posed by global warming. There are two big challenges for this century and they are world poverty and climate change. We have to take these two together.”

This is the foundation of GreenWish Partners. We capture the opportunities created by technology innovations to foster of Africa with climate-smart solutions. For those who are not familiar with the context, a few figures to sum up the African energy challenge: 620 million out of 900 million people don’t have access to electricity in Africa. These are 2% of growth lost each year. Billions of dollars are spent on fossil fuels to power polluting generators. The needed expansion of electricity networks across Africa would cost $ 63 billion a year up to 2030, while only $ 8 billion a year is being spent.

Nowhere as much as in Africa, can Tech bring the urgent solutions to climate change and economic development. I see a double Tech revolution in progress in Africa:

1)   The first revolution is the opportunity for a whole continent to move from lack of power to an abundant, clean and reliable energy.

On the grid: As our 25MW solar farm in Senegal that produces electricity at a 40% discount to the energy mix, renewable technologies, solar, wind and of course hydro, are now the most competitive sources of energy for the continent. Solar panels have decreased by 80% since 2010. The last gap to bridge is the competitiveness of storage but the cost of battery has already been divided by 4 in the last 4 years.

Over the grid: Renewable technologies also provide decentralized power solutions for the private sector: industrials, telecom sector, commercial users as well as for populations in rural areas.

Let’s take the example of the telecom sector, which is a strategic business line In Congo, we are converting 300 telecom towers for Orange from diesel to solar battery solutions: we improve of power, reduce by 70% the diesel consumption and by 30% the total cost of power. There will be soon 300 000 towers in Africa and bad grid that can benefit from solar-hybrid solutions. Finally, the expansion of connectivity coverage will support energy efficiency and smart use of power on the grid and over the grid with net metering solutions and energy shaving of large consumers.

2)   The second tech leapfrog is the productive uses that and IT enable:

Access to power has a strong impact on the efficiency of all value chains, in particular on the agri-industry by allowing both cold storage and transformation of products on site. And the most powerful technology leapfrog provided by clean power is the enabling of connectivity and universal access to digital. The association of cleantech and IT is a major accelerator of social and economic development for the underserved populations.

This is the underlying strategy of our GreenWishVillages: thanks to access to power and connectivity, we allow cold storage and improved distribution networks for our B to B partners and their such consumer goods industrials, telecom operators, pharmaceuticals, banking, solar home system providers… Via our associated digital platform, we enable digital services such as e-health, e-education, e-agriculture e-government as well as e-banking and e-commerce.

By empowering populations, we create economic and social value in sensitive areas, often the most impacted by the consequences of climate change such as North of Nigeria, the Sahel strip or around the Chad Lake. We create jobs and reduce the divide between urban and rural centers which is a key priority to fight poverty, urbanization, migration radicalization.

Each of our Villages will empower 10 to 20,000 people. If we deploy 10,000 GreenWish Villages with our commercial and government partners, we can empower up to 200 million people.

This is the magnitude of the potential of the Tech revolution but also of the new paradigm of inclusive economy and public-private sector partnerships: through convergence of physical and digital services, partnerships and inclusive business models, we can address climate change and poverty alleviation together meanwhile creating sustainable and attractive investment opportunities for the international investment community.

That is why we bring “climate-smart solutions to people”.

surendra kulkarni

Leader - TowerCo Operations & Technology. Leadership Experience in West Africa KSA & India.

6 年

Nothing personal and with the greatest respect - Its great that you discovered your conscience and went green. Now you can invest all that money you made as a banker, in really poor countries...and feel good about it! African Governments would do well to avoid what i call " band aid solutions". We work here and know the reality. Chinese , French, Italian, Lebanese, Indian...all sorts of " green products" litter telecom sites across Africa. Its like a United Nations Warehouse at most sites! Transfer of Technology & enabling 100% local manufacture of green solutions is a good way forward.

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LUCY MUCHOKI

CEO,Pan African Agribusiness and Agroindustry Consortium.A regional network that supports African Agribusiness

6 年

Very proud of you Charllote. Very inspiring. Go on create the impact. Great woman, Great mind??

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Tony Tiyou

Founder, CEO & Editor-in-Chief @ Renewables in Africa (RiA) | Clean Energy Solutions

6 年

Excellent and inspiring journey so far!!

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Quy Nghi La

Mechanical design freelance

6 年

To choose sustaineble green energy for creating development in Africa and Asia .This permit to reduce immigration. Why doesn't Trump speak about this issue ?

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