One IEEE member’s journey into an IEEE speaker
The IEEE PowerTech Conference was hosted by the the Bovisa Campus of Politecnico di Milano University from 23 to 27 June. The event attracted students, young professionals and professionals in industry for engaging discussions on the future of Power. PowerTech is the anchor conference of the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) in Europe and provides a forum for researchers and engineers involved in electric power and energy engineering to share ideas and results. The conference attracted both industry and academia to reinforce their partnership and to encourage IEEE members to work together to drive innovation in the world of energy.
I am currently CEO and Co-Founder of Solar net metering Uganda, a company designing a solar net metering billing system for Uganda and eventually for Sub Saharan Africa. Our main goal is to ensure provision of high quality eco-friendly energy systems for all communities off the national grid. Being passionate about research and innovation made me come up with the idea of having this system in place. We are currently in the project development stage and are committed towards successful implementation of our project.
I was privileged to be invited to travel to Milan to participate in this conference as a speaker in the Energy Start & MeetUp special session that helped kick off the 24 June programming. The session focused on bringing together different start-up experiences in the energy sector to discuss challenges, opportunities and barriers to entry from a business perspective. It was a great experience interacting with fellow entrepreneurs whose startups are all in the same field. The session was very interactive with solid feedback and advice coming from experienced CEOs in a variety of energy companies that have already scaled. It’s always very enriching for me to be part of a team of people who are willing to not only offer advice but continuously give further guidance to see that my project is a success.
On behalf of the entire team at Solar net metering Uganda, I would like to give our sincere thanks to the IEEE Entrepreneurship initiative in collaboration with the IEEE Power and Energy Society for making it possible for me to attend this event. The moderators, committee members, panelists and all attendees made the event a success. The experience was worth it!
