Empowering Futures, Energizing Minds: Two Years of Energy Mentors
Don Victory
EnergyMentors.org Founder / Chair | Energy Affordability, Energy Sustainability, Energy Security & Reliability
It popped up today that we launched Energy Mentors two years ago!? Here are reflections and an accounting of our track record.
Background:
In 2022 I was approaching “retirement” after 40 years in energy.? How would I spend my new discretionary time?? With encouragement from others, especially my wife Joyce, I founded Energy Mentors .? Our mission: “Catalyze a rising generation of energy professionals.”? Energy of the future will be different than what proceeded:? even more affordable, sustainable, and accessible for all!? Yet why not leverage the lessons that brought us here?? Young minds bring innovation and human energy.? Experience can guide and catalyze.? ?Could we bring together innovative minds and wizened experience to faster deploy the energy systems of the future?
Energy Mentors adopted “agile innovation”:? experiment fast, within a long-term vision, with focus on just one or two “products” in the first years.? Get market feedback soonest to inform how to realize the vision.
Accomplishments:
1.????? Power the Community, an International College Design Competition.? We have 46 teams registered from around the world:? India, Rwanda, Ethiopia, France, Zimbabwe, and the United States!? Submissions are due May 15.? One competing team relayed we have the largest student prize pool for energy competitions in the world, $31,000.? Tune in to the live webcast of winners on June 22 (6:30 PM India, early afternoon Africa and Europe, morning in South America, 9 AM Eastern US, 8 AM Central US and Mexico City).?
2.????? International Energy Intern Program (May-July, 2023) by the Indian Institute of Technology Ropar & Energy Mentors.? 90 students completed a program consisting of one week of lectures and technical training followed by 7 weeks of teamwork to design a distributed energy system.? The virtual format permitted participation from across India, Bangladesh, and Africa due to the low barriers of entry, just internet connectivity.? One five-person team had members from three different countries!
3.????? Targeted engagements:? in person at 美国德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校 , the University of Houston , and the University of Connecticut ; plus online with students from around the world, many expanding out from relationships established via the Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar , and some organically grown, and other industry engagements.
What we celebrate:
A.???? Delivering Mentoring@Scale, using agile innovation, delivering two “minimum viable products” (MVPs), a design competition and an intern program.
B.???? Bootstrapping with low resources and risk.? Not taxing the time of our supporters.? Maintain very low expenses.
C.????? Recognizing a non-profit “start-up” is as fraught and demanding and rewarding as starting up a for-profit business.
To what we aspire:
a.????? Making Power the Community an annual competition!
b.????? Creating “Mentor Match.” The demand for practical career lessons from students around the world is there. Geography is no longer an obstacle. For as little as six hours a semester, an experienced professional can mentor a rising university student or early career professional over virtual sessions. We just have to build the platform.
Lessons (that is, disappointments):
1.????? The (ahem) founder needs to focus on organization building:? People-Volunteers, networks, and capabilities.? It takes more than engineering and conceptualization. Execution is everything. To realize the mission it will take organized, sustained resources across many disciplines:? product creation, program execution, marketing, data science and apps, financial controls, external and supporter relations, etc. The signpost that we are actioning our lessons will be a visible cadre of experienced, volunteer professionals running Energy Mentors, with the founder taking the post of chief engineer and not chief executive.
Finally, gratitude...
True givers contribute their time!? At the risk of omission, some shout outs:
Early Supporters & Collaborators
领英推荐
?University / Institute Early Adaptors and Engagements:
1.????? Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar , especially Professors Asad H. Sahir, PhD and Dhiraj Kumar Mahajan , who dared to challenge, “Is it enough to mentor?? Can we go further and actually train and upskill dozens and dozens from around the globe?”? And the many on the execution team for the 2023 International Intern Program:? Radhika Trikha , Mukesh Kestwal, PhD , Harshita Sandhu , and Varun Nair .
2.????? UConn!? University of Connecticut . Special thanks to David Noble , Zoey England , and the Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation , for providing (!) our External Affairs Manager, Julia Ghagare ; and to UConn leadership for their continuing support:? Radenka Maric , Pamir Alpay , Jeffrey McCutcheon , and the ever-achieving Kimberly Rose .
3.????? University of Houston :? Bruce Race, PhD, FAIA, FAICP , Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design , who adopted the challenge of Power the Community into his Design Studio during the January-May 2024 semester; Donna Kacmar, FAIA for my first intro to great living through urban redesign; and Alan Rossiter, PhD, PE and the students of the UH Energy Coalition .?
4.????? 美国德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校 : Nora Ankrum , Carey King and all that UT Energy Institute , and all the students of the Longhorn Energy Club .
5.????? 美国普渡大学 : Bev Mentzer and Fabio Ribeiro
Key Vendors:?
·??????? Nightowl Tech Solutions Pvt. Ltd. : Ankit Sharma and ?Nitin Yadav
·??????? PEERLESS CFO SERVICES LLC : Janet Long and Jazmine Shockley
Our staff: ?
·??????? Ashley V. , Operations Manager
·??????? Julia Ghagare , External Affairs Coordinator
·??????? Ian Kiprono , Participant Coordinator
Board Members:
·??????? Carol O'Reilly , Redwood & Co
·??????? Michelle Rose
The ultimate supporter:
·??????? Joyce Victory.? What a wonderful journey dating back to high school!
Here's to continuing our mission:? Mentoring a rising generation of Energy professionals!
Energy trader with business development and international advisory experience and a cross-commodity, global market outlook. Experience in Europe, U.S. and LatAm. Focus on natgas, power, LNG and H2 markets.
10 个月Don, congratulations on the milestone and on the impact you have on people’s lives through Energy Mentors. It is always a pleasure to get together with you to talk about where the energy industry is and where it is going. Lots to catch up on post-GCPA!
Happy 2-year milestone, Energy Mentors! ?? Progress is not achieved by luck but through relentless effort - paraphrasing Seneca. Let's keep pushing boundaries for a brighter future!
SVP of Product Management
11 个月Don Victory, Congratulations on you remarkable success with Energy Mentors initiative! You are an inspiration to us. Great to collaborate with you and thank you for your continued mentorship!
Assistant Professor-Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology-Ropar and SWE IIT Ropar Faculty Advisor
11 个月Don, lots of congratulations on this amazing success. A pleasure to be a part of the First Edition. Your passion to help emerging engineers is amazing, and your generosity in sharing experience with students at IIT Ropar is fondly remembered.