Student organizers are planning the most ambitious edition of the annual Tufts Energy Conference, including big?name speakers and its first?ever student energy?project contest this year.
Students, faculty and experts in energy and sustainability issues will participate in a two?day conference, titled "Exploring Energy's Great Debates: Moving Past Posturing to Arrive at Achievable Energy Solutions," next month. The conference, organized by Tufts graduate and undergraduate students and entering its sixth year, will feature high?profile presenters from outside the university, including Grameen Bank co?founder Dipal Chandra Barua, according to Katherine Walsh, conference marketing co?director.
This year's conference theme will tackle major questions about how the world will be fueled in the future, said Walsh, a dual?degree master's student at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the Tufts Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning program.
"We're thinking about the future of energy ... and we're thinking about who gets access to it," Walsh said. "Sixteen percent of the world population doesn't have access to consistent energy."
The two?day event aims to link global efforts to curb energy consumption with efforts stemming from the Hill. Other speakers include David Nagel, executive vice president of BP America, and Fred Hauchman, the director of the Office of Science Policy at the Environmental Protection Agency.
"[The conference] brings together different experts in the field, but it's also trying to show off what Tufts University is doing ... because there's just so much going on," Walsh said.
Barua, co?founder of the Nobel Prize?winning Grameen Bank, a microfinance organization that provides loans to the poor, and chairman and founder of Bright Green Energy Foundation, will speak as part of the conference's "Clean Energy Imperative" panel.
The Tufts Energy Challenge, a new addition to this year's conference, will pit eight student research projects or action proposals related to energy sustainability against each other with $1,000 at stake each for the top two entries.
A selection committee and the conference audience will choose one research?oriented project and one action proposal from among the submissions.
Freshman Michael Lesser's submission to the challenge is a project proposal whose preliminary aims are to encourage the university to cooperate with nearby landlords in increasing the availability of environmentally friendly housing for Tufts students and spread the use of solar energy on campus buildings.
"My inspiration was that, in our society, green initiatives are encouraged all over, yet the biggest obstacle to their implementation is in many cases the financial burden, and I feel like it's so important that we try to find ways to not make that an impeding factor," Lesser said.
He said his project is congruous with the conference organizers' wish to encourage energy researchers to think outside the box.
"What I'm proposing is something a little bit different," Lesser said.
The prize money will help project designers implement the concepts they put forward in their submissions, according to Walsh.
"We're giving these people the opportunity to go explore these ideas, so it loops back," Walsh said.
The judges will evaluate submissions based on their degree of innovation, she said.
"Demonstration of knowledge of the field, that they understand the context and realities ... is important, [but also] innovation - what is it about this project that's different?" Walsh said. "There might be other people in the field who are doing similar work ... but what is it that's really going to push the envelope on thinking about energy?"
Judges will also base their selections on project feasibility, according to Conference Chair Conor Branch, a second?year student at The Fletcher School.
"They're looking for the creativity of the project, the utility of the project and the ability to actually go out and implement the project, as well as the planning and the forethought that went into it," Branch said.
The conference, initiated in 2006 by the Institute for Global Leadership's Tufts Energy Forum (TEF) as a two?panel exposition on energy research at Tufts, has since grown in size. Last year, TEF expanded the conference to include speeches, panels and workshops across two days.
Walsh said Barua's inclusion in the conference fits with the conferences goal of bringing distinct perspectives on how energy research can encompass issues like poverty and health.
"When people really start pulling the layers back ... you realize, 'Wow, this [health issue] really has to do with the fact that there really isn't a sustainable energy source in this area,'" she added. "I think that's really an important conversation to have."
Beyond valuable discussion, Walsh also said having Barua at the conference will be beneficial for publicity purposes, attracting a crowd that might not have attended otherwise.
"It's a huge name, that's a big deal within itself," she said. "We want it to be a diverse crowd, coming from multiple angles, because that will really push the conversation forward."
Branch agreed that Barua will offer the audience a unique take on sustainable energy methods in poor countries.
"We think that he'll provide a perspective of how commercial lending institutions and microfinance institutions can be used to [provide] renewable energy to people of limited means in developing countries," Branch said.
