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    Uplifting West African communities, one cashew at a time

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    Ever wonder how your favorite snack was sourced? Joshua Reed-Diawuoh thinks more people should.Reed-Diawuoh MBA ’20 is the founder and CEO of GRIA Food Company, which partners with companies that ethically source and process food in West Africa to support local food economies and help communities in the region more broadly.“It’s very difficult for these agribusinesses and producers to start sustainable businesses and build up that value chain in the area,” says Reed-Diawuoh, who started the company as a student in the MIT Sloan School of Management. “We want to support these companies that put in the work to build integrated businesses that are employing people and uplifting communities.”GRIA, which stands for “Grown in Africa,” is currently selling six types of flavored cashews sourced from Benin, Togo, and Burkina Faso. All of the cashews are certified by Fairtrade International, which means in addition to offering sustainable wages, access to financing, and decent working conditions, the companies receive a “Fairtrade Premium” on top of the selling price that allows them to invest in the long-term health of their communities.“That premium is transformational,” Reed-Diawuoh says. “The premium goes to the producer cooperatives, or the farmers working the land, and they can invest that in any way they choose. They can put it back into their business, they can start new community development projects, like building schools or improving wastewater infrastructure, whatever they want.”Cracking the nutReed-Diawuoh’s family is from Ghana, and before coming to MIT Sloan, he worked to support agriculture and food manufacturing for countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, with particular focus on uplifting small-scale farmers. That’s where he learned about difficulties with financing and infrastructure constraints that held many companies back.“I wanted to get my hands dirty and start my own business that contributed to improving agricultural development in West Africa,” Reed-Diawuoh says.He entered MIT Sloan in 2018, taking entrepreneurship classes and exploring several business ideas before deciding to ethically source produce from farmers and sell directly to consumers. He says MIT Sloan’s Sustainability Business Lab offered particularly valuable lessons for how to structure his business.In his second year, Reed-Diawuoh was selected for a fellowship at the Legatum Center, which connected him to other entrepreneurs working in emerging markets around the world.“Legatum was a pivotal milestone for me,” he says. “It provided me with some structure and space to develop this idea. It also gave me an incredible opportunity to take risks and explore different business concepts in a way I couldn’t have done if I was working in industry.”The business model Reed-Diawuoh settled on for GRIA sources product from agribusiness partners in West Africa that adhere to the strictest environmental and labor standards. Reed-Diawuoh decided to start with cashews because they have many manual processing steps — from shelling to peeling and roasting — that are often done after the cashews are shipped out of West Africa, limiting the growth of local food economies and taking wealth out of communities.Each of GRIA’s partners, from the companies harvesting cashews to the processing facilities, works directly with farmer cooperatives and small-scale farmers and is certified by Fairtrade International.“Without proper oversight and regulations, workers oftentimes get exploited, and child labor is a huge problem across the agriculture sector,” Reed-Diawuoh says. “Fairtrade certifications try and take a robust and rigorous approach to auditing all of the businesses and their supply chains, from producers to farmers to processors. They do on-site visits and they audit financial documents. We went through this over the course of a thorough three-month review.”After importing cashew kernels, GRIA flavors and packages them at a production facility in Boston. Reed-Diawuoh started by selling to small independent retailers in Greater Boston before scaling up GRIA’s online sales. He started ramping up production in the beginning of 2023.“Every time we sell our product, if people weren’t already familiar with Fairtrade or ethical sourcing, we provide information on our packaging and all of our collateral,” Reed-Diawuoh says. “We want to spread this message about the importance of ethical sourcing and the importance of building up food manufacturing in West Africa in particular, but also in rising economies throughout the world.”Making ethical sourcing mainstreamGRIA currently imports about a ton of Fairtrade cashews and kernels each quarter, and Reed-Diawuoh hopes to double that number each year for the foreseeable future.“For each pound, we pay premiums for the kernels, and that supports this ecosystem where producers get compensated fairly for their work on the land, and agribusinesses are able to build more robust and profitable business models, because they have an end market for these Fairtrade-certified products.”Reed-Diawuoh is currently trying out different packaging and flavors and is in discussions with partners to expand production capacity and move into Ghana. He’s also exploring corporate collaborations and has provided MIT with product over the past two years for conferences and other events.“We’re experimenting with different growth strategies,” Reed-Diawuoh says. “We’re very much still in startup mode, but really trying to ramp up our sales and production.”As GRIA scales, Reed-Diawuoh hopes it pushes consumers to start asking more of their favorite food brands.“It’s absolutely critical that, if we’re sourcing produce in markets like the U.S. from places like West Africa, we’re hyper-focused on doing it in an ethical manner,” Reed-Diawuoh says. “The overall goal of GRIA is to ensure we are adhering to and promoting strict sourcing standards and being rigorous and thoughtful about the way we import product.” More

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      in Energy

      D-Lab off-grid brooder saves chicks and money using locally manufactured thermal batteries

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      MIT D-Lab students and instructors are improving the efficacy and economics of a brooder technology for newborn chicks that utilizes a practical, local resource: beeswax.Developed through participatory design with agricultural partners in Cameroon, their Off-Grid Brooder is a solution aimed at improving the profitability of the African nation’s small- and medium-scale poultry farms. Since it is common for smallholders in places with poor electricity supply to tend open fires overnight to keep chicks warm, the invention might also let farmers catch up on their sleep.“The target is eight hours. If farmers can sustain the warmth for eight hours, then they get to sleep,” says D-Lab instructor and former student Ahmad (Zak) Zakka SM ’23, who traveled to Cameroon in May to work on implementing brooder improvements tested at the D-Lab, along with D-Lab students, collaborators from African Solar Generation (ASG), and the African Diaspora Council of Switzerland – Branch Cameroon (CDAS–BC).Poultry farming is heavily concentrated in lower- and middle-income countries, where it is an important component of rural economies and provides an inexpensive source of protein for residents. Raising chickens is fraught with economic risk, however, largely because it is hard for small-scale farmers to keep newborn chicks warm enough to survive (33 to 35 degrees Celsius, or 91 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on age). After the cost of feed, firewood used to heat the chick space is the biggest input for rural poultry farmers.According to D-Lab researchers, an average smallholder in Cameroon using traditional brooding methods spends $17 per month on firewood, achieves a 10 percent profit margin, and experiences chick mortality that can be as high as a total loss due to overheating or insufficient heat. The Off-Grid Brooder is designed to replace open fires with inexpensive, renewable, and locally available beeswax — a phase-change material used to make thermal batteries.ASG initially developed a brooder technology, the SolarBox, that used photovoltaic panels and electric batteries to power incandescent bulbs. While this provided effective heating, it was prohibitively expensive and difficult to maintain. In 2020, students from the D-Lab Energy class took on the challenge of reducing the cost and complexity of the SolarBox heating system to make it more accessible to small farmers in Cameroon. Through participatory design — a collaborative approach that involves all stakeholders in early stages of the design process — the team discovered a unique solution. Beeswax stored in a used glass container (such as a mayonnaise jar) is melted using a double boiler over a fire and then installed inside insulated brooder boxes alongside the chicks. As the beeswax cools and solidifies, it releases heat for several hours, keeping the brooder within the temperature range that chicks need to grow and develop. Farmers can then recharge the cooled wax batteries and repeat the process again and again. “The big challenge was how to get heat,” says D-Lab Research Scientist Daniel Sweeney, who, with Zakka, co-teaches two D-Lab classes, 2.651/EC.711 (Introduction to Energy in Global Development), and 2.652/EC.712 (Applications of Energy in Global Development). “Decoupling the heat supplied by biomass (wood) from the heat the chicks need at night in the brooder, that’s the core of the innovation here.”D-Lab instructors, researchers, and students have tested and tuned the system with partners in Cameroon. A research box constructed during a D-Lab trip to Cameroon in January 2023 worked well, but was “very expensive to build,” Zakka says. “The research box was a proof of concept in the field. The next step was to figure out how to make it affordable,” he continues.A new brooder box, made entirely of locally sourced recycled materials at 5 percent of the cost of the research prototype, was developed during D-Lab’s January 2024 trip to Cameroon. Designed and produced in collaboration with CDAS-BC, the new brooder is much more affordable, but its functionality still needs fine-tuning. From late-May through mid-June, the D-Lab team, led by Zakka, worked with Cameroonian collaborators to improve the system again. This time, they assessed the efficacy of using straw, a readily available and low-cost material, arranged in panels to insulate the brooder box.The MIT team was hosted by CDAS-BC, including its president and founder Carole Erlemann Mengue and secretary and treasurer Kathrin Witschi, who operate an organic poultry farm in Afambassi, Cameroon. “The students will experiment with the box and try to improve the insulation of the box without neglecting that the chicks will need ventilation,” they say.In addition, the CDAS-BC partners say that they hoped to explore increasing the number of chicks that the box can keep warm. “If the system could heat 500 to 1,000 chicks at a time,” they note, “it would help farmers save firewood, to sleep through the night, and to minimize the risk of fire in the building and the risk of stepping on chicks while replacing firewood.” Earlier this spring, Erlemann Mengue and Witschi tested the low-cost Off-Grid Brooder Box, which can hold 30 to 40 chicks in its current design.“They were very interested in partnering with us to evaluate the technology. They are running the tests and doing a lot of technical measurement to track the temperature inside the brooder over time,” says Sweeney, adding that the CDAS-BC partners are amassing datasets that they send to the MIT D-Lab team. Sweeney and Zakka, along with PhD candidate Aly Kombargi, who worked on the research box in Cameroon last year, hope to not only improve the functionality of the Off-Grid Poultry Brooder but also broaden its use beyond Cameroon.“The goal of our trip was to have a working prototype, and the goal since then has been to scale this up,” Kombargi says. “It’s absolutely scalable.”Concurring that “the technology should work across developing countries in small-scale poultry sectors,” Zakka says this spring’s D-Lab trip included workshops for area poultry farmers to teach them about benefits of the Off-Grid Brooder and how to make their own. “I’m excited to see if we can get people excited about pushing this as a business … to see if they would build and sell it to other people in the community,” Zakka says.Adds Sweeney, “This isn’t rocket science. If we have some guidance and some open-source information we could share, I’m pretty sure (farmers) could put them together on their own.”Already, he says, partners identified through MIT’s networks in Zambia and Uganda are building their own brooders based on the D-Lab design.MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS), which supports research, innovation, and cross-disciplinary collaborations involving water and food systems, awarded the Off-Grid Brooder project a $25,000 research and development grant in 2022. The program is “pleased that the project’s approach was grounded in engagement with MIT students and community collaborators,” says Executive Director Renee Robins. “The participatory design process helped produce innovative prototypes that are already making positive impacts for smallholder poultry farmers.”That process and the very real impact on communities in Cameroon is what draws students to the project and keeps them committed.Sweeney says a recent D-Lab design review for the chick brooder highlighted that the project continued to attract the attention and curiosity of students who participated in earlier stages and still want to be involved.“There’s something about this project. There’s this whole tribe of students that are still active on the broader project,” he says. “There’s something about it.” More

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      in Environment

      Q&A: Exploring ethnic dynamics and climate change in Africa

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      Evan Lieberman is the Total Professor of Political Science and Contemporary Africa at MIT, and is also director of the Center for International Studies. During a semester-long sabbatical, he’s currently based at the African Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town.In this Q&A, Lieberman discusses several climate-related research projects he’s pursuing in South Africa and surrounding countries. This is part of an ongoing series exploring how the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences is addressing the climate crisis.Q: South Africa is a nation whose political and economic development you have long studied and written about. Do you see this visit as an extension of the kind of research you have been pursuing, or a departure from it?A: Much of my previous work has been animated by the question of understanding the causes and consequences of group-based disparities, whether due to AIDS or Covid. These are problems that know no geographic boundaries, and where ethnic and racial minorities are often hardest hit. Climate change is an analogous problem, with these minority populations living in places where they are most vulnerable, in heat islands in cities, and in coastal areas where they are not protected. The reality is they might get hit much harder by longer-term trends and immediate shocks.In one line of research, I seek to understand how people in different African countries, in different ethnic groups, perceive the problems of climate change and their governments’ response to it. There are ethnic divisions of labor in terms of what people do — whether they are farmers or pastoralists, or live in cities. So some ethnic groups are simply more affected by drought or extreme weather than others, and this can be a basis for conflict, especially when competing for often limited government resources.In this area, just like in my previous research, learning what shapes ordinary citizen perspectives is really important, because these views affect people’s everyday practices, and the extent to which they support certain kinds of policies and investments their government makes in response to climate-related challenges. But I will also try to learn more about the perspectives of policymakers and various development partners who seek to balance climate-related challenges against a host of other problems and priorities.Q: You recently published “Until We Have Won Our Liberty,” which examines the difficult transition of South Africa from apartheid to a democratic government, scrutinizing in particular whether the quality of life for citizens has improved in terms of housing, employment, discrimination, and ethnic conflicts. How do climate change-linked issues fit into your scholarship?A: I never saw myself as a climate researcher, but a number of years ago, heavily influenced by what I was learning at MIT, I began to recognize more and more how important the issue of climate change is. And I realized there were lots of ways in which the climate problem resonated with other kinds of problems I had tackled in earlier parts of my work.There was once a time when climate and the environment was the purview primarily of white progressives: the “tree huggers.” And that’s really changed in recent decades as it has become evident that the people who’ve been most affected by the climate emergency are ethnic and racial minorities. We saw with Hurricane Katrina and other places [that] if you are Black, you’re more likely to live in a vulnerable area and to just generally experience more environmental harms, from pollution and emissions, leaving these communities much less resilient than white communities. Government has largely not addressed this inequity. When you look at American survey data in terms of who’s concerned about climate change, Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans are more unified in their worries than are white Americans.There are analogous problems in Africa, my career research focus. Governments there have long responded in different ways to different ethnic groups. The research I am starting looks at the extent to which there are disparities in how governments try to solve climate-related challenges.Q: It’s difficult enough in the United States taking the measure of different groups’ perceptions of the impact of climate change and government’s effectiveness in contending with it. How do you go about this in Africa?A: Surprisingly, there’s only been a little bit of work done so far on how ordinary African citizens, who are ostensibly being hit the hardest in the world by the climate emergency, are thinking about this problem. Climate change has not been politicized there in a very big way. In fact, only 50 percent of Africans in one poll had heard of the term.In one of my new projects, with political science faculty colleague Devin Caughey and political science doctoral student Preston Johnston, we are analyzing social and climate survey data [generated by the Afrobarometer research network] from over 30 African countries to understand within and across countries the ways in which ethnic identities structure people’s perception of the climate crisis, and their beliefs in what government ought to be doing. In largely agricultural African societies, people routinely experience drought, extreme rain, and heat. They also lack the infrastructure that can shield them from the intense variability of weather patterns. But we’re adding a lens, which is looking at sources of inequality, especially ethnic differences.I will also be investigating specific sectors. Africa is a continent where in most places people cannot take for granted universal, piped access to clean water. In Cape Town, several years ago, the combination of failure to replace infrastructure and lack of rain caused such extreme conditions that one of the world’s most important cities almost ran out of water.While these studies are in progress, it is clear that in many countries, there are substantively large differences in perceptions of the severity of climate change, and attitudes about who should be doing what, and who’s capable of doing what. In several countries, both perceptions and policy preferences are differentiated along ethnic lines, more so than with respect to generational or class differences within societies.This is interesting as a phenomenon, but substantively, I think it’s important in that it may provide the basis for how politicians and government actors decide to move on allocating resources and implementing climate-protection policies. We see this kind of political calculation in the U.S. and we shouldn’t be surprised that it happens in Africa as well.That’s ultimately one of the challenges from the perch of MIT, where we’re really interested in understanding climate change, and creating technological tools and policies for mitigating the problem or adapting to it. The reality is frustrating. The political world — those who make decisions about whether to acknowledge the problem and whether to implement resources in the best technical way — are playing a whole other game. That game is about rewarding key supporters and being reelected.Q: So how do you go from measuring perceptions and beliefs among citizens about climate change and government responsiveness to those problems, to policies and actions that might actually reduce disparities in the way climate-vulnerable African groups receive support?A: Some of the work I have been doing involves understanding what local and national governments across Africa are actually doing to address these problems. We will have to drill down into government budgets to determine the actual resources devoted to addressing a challenge, what sorts of practices the government follows, and the political ramifications for governments that act aggressively versus those that don’t. With the Cape Town water crisis, for example, the government dramatically changed residents’ water usage through naming and shaming, and transformed institutional practices of water collection. They made it through a major drought by using much less water, and doing it with greater energy efficiency. Through the government’s strong policy and implementation, and citizens’ active responses, an entire city, with all its disparate groups, gained resilience. Maybe we can highlight creative solutions to major climate-related problems and use them as prods to push more effective policies and solutions in other places.In the MIT Global Diversity Lab, along with political science faculty colleague Volha Charnysh, political science doctoral student Jared Kalow, and Institute for Data, Systems and Society doctoral student Erin Walk, we are exploring American perspectives on climate-related foreign aid, asking survey respondents whether the U.S. should be giving more to people in the global South who didn’t cause the problems of climate change but have to suffer the externalities. We are particularly interested in whether people’s desire to help vulnerable communities rests on the racial or national identity of those communities.From my new seat as director of the Center for International Studies (CIS), I hope to do more and more to connect social science findings to relevant policymakers, whether in the U.S. or in other places. CIS is making climate one of our thematic priority areas, directing hundreds of thousands of dollars for MIT faculty to spark climate collaborations with researchers worldwide through the Global Seed Fund program. COP 28 (the U.N. Climate Change Conference), which I attended in December in Dubai, really drove home the importance of people coming together from around the world to exchange ideas and form networks. It was unbelievably large, with 85,000 people. But so many of us shared the belief that we are not doing enough. We need enforceable global solutions and innovation. We need ways of financing. We need to provide opportunities for journalists to broadcast the importance of this problem. And we need to understand the incentives that different actors have and what sorts of messages and strategies will resonate with them, and inspire those who have resources to be more generous. More

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      in Energy

      Optimizing nuclear fuels for next-generation reactors

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      In 2010, when Ericmoore Jossou was attending college in northern Nigeria, the lights would flicker in and out all day, sometimes lasting only for a couple of hours at a time. The frustrating experience reaffirmed Jossou’s realization that the country’s sporadic energy supply was a problem. It was the beginning of his path toward nuclear engineering.

      Because of the energy crisis, “I told myself I was going to find myself in a career that allows me to develop energy technologies that can easily be scaled to meet the energy needs of the world, including my own country,” says Jossou, an assistant professor in a shared position between the departments of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE), where is the John Clark Hardwick (1986) Professor, and of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

      Today, Jossou uses computer simulations for rational materials design, AI-aided purposeful development of cladding materials and fuels for next-generation nuclear reactors. As one of the shared faculty hires between the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and departments across MIT, his appointment recognizes his commitment to computing for climate and the environment.

      A well-rounded education in Nigeria

      Growing up in Lagos, Jossou knew education was about more than just bookish knowledge, so he was eager to travel and experience other cultures. He would start in his own backyard by traveling across the Niger river and enrolling in Ahmadu Bello University in northern Nigeria. Moving from the south was a cultural education with a different language and different foods. It was here that Jossou got to try and love tuwo shinkafa, a northern Nigerian rice-based specialty, for the first time.

      After his undergraduate studies, armed with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, Jossou was among a small cohort selected for a specialty master’s training program funded by the World Bank Institute and African Development Bank. The program at the African University of Science and Technology in Abuja, Nigeria, is a pan-African venture dedicated to nurturing homegrown science talent on the continent. Visiting professors from around the world taught intensive three-week courses, an experience which felt like drinking from a fire hose. The program widened Jossou’s views and he set his sights on a doctoral program with an emphasis on clean energy systems.

      A pivot to nuclear science

      While in Nigeria, Jossou learned of Professor Jerzy Szpunar at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, who was looking for a student researcher to explore fuels and alloys for nuclear reactors. Before then, Jossou was lukewarm on nuclear energy, but the research sounded fascinating. The Fukushima, Japan, incident was recently in the rearview mirror and Jossou remembered his early determination to address his own country’s energy crisis. He was sold on the idea and graduated with a doctoral degree from the University of Saskatchewan on an international dean’s scholarship.

      Jossou’s postdoctoral work registered a brief stint at Brookhaven National Laboratory as staff scientist. He leaped at the opportunity to join MIT NSE as a way of realizing his research interest and teaching future engineers. “I would really like to conduct cutting-edge research in nuclear materials design and to pass on my knowledge to the next generation of scientists and engineers and there’s no better place to do that than at MIT,” Jossou says.

      Merging material science and computational modeling

      Jossou’s doctoral work on designing nuclear fuels for next-generation reactors forms the basis of research his lab is pursuing at MIT NSE. Nuclear reactors that were built in the 1950s and ’60s are getting a makeover in terms of improved accident tolerance. Reactors are not confined to one kind, either: We have micro reactors and are now considering ones using metallic nuclear fuels, Jossou points out. The diversity of options is enough to keep researchers busy testing materials fit for cladding, the lining that prevents corrosion of the fuel and release of radioactive fission products into the surrounding reactor coolant.

      The team is also investigating fuels that improve burn-up efficiencies, so they can last longer in the reactor. An intriguing approach has been to immobilize the gas bubbles that arise from the fission process, so they don’t grow and degrade the fuel.

      Since joining MIT in July 2023, Jossou is setting up a lab that optimizes the composition of accident-tolerant nuclear fuels. He is leaning on his materials science background and looping computer simulations and artificial intelligence in the mix.

      Computer simulations allow the researchers to narrow down the potential field of candidates, optimized for specific parameters, so they can synthesize only the most promising candidates in the lab. And AI’s predictive capabilities guide researchers on which materials composition to consider next. “We no longer depend on serendipity to choose our materials, our lab is based on rational materials design,” Jossou says, “we can rapidly design advanced nuclear fuels.”

      Advancing energy causes in Africa

      Now that he is at MIT, Jossou admits the view from the outside is different. He now harbors a different perspective on what Africa needs to address some of its challenges. “The starting point to solve our problems is not money; it needs to start with ideas,” he says, “we need to find highly skilled people who can actually solve problems.” That job involves adding economic value to the rich arrays of raw materials that the continent is blessed with. It frustrates Jossou that Niger, a country rich in raw material for uranium, has no nuclear reactors of its own. It ships most of its ore to France. “The path forward is to find a way to refine these materials in Africa and to be able to power the industries on that continent as well,” Jossou says.

      Jossou is determined to do his part to eliminate these roadblocks.

      Anchored in mentorship, Jossou’s solution aims to train talent from Africa in his own lab. He has applied for a MIT Global Experiences MISTI grant to facilitate travel and research studies for Ghanaian scientists. “The goal is to conduct research in our facility and perhaps add value to indigenous materials,” Jossou says.

      Adding value has been a consistent theme of Jossou’s career. He remembers wanting to become a neurosurgeon after reading “Gifted Hands,” moved by the personal story of the author, Ben Carson. As Jossou grew older, however, he realized that becoming a doctor wasn’t necessarily what he wanted. Instead, he was looking to add value. “What I wanted was really to take on a career that allows me to solve a societal problem.” The societal problem of clean and safe energy for all is precisely what Jossou is working on today. More

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      in Energy

      Ayomikun Ayodeji ’22 named a 2024 Rhodes Scholar

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      Ayomikun “Ayo” Ayodeji ’22 from Lagos, Nigeria, has been selected as a Rhodes Scholar for West Africa. He will begin fully funded postgraduate studies at Oxford University in the U.K. next fall.

      Ayodeji was supported by Associate Dean Kim Benard and the Distinguished Fellowships team in Career Advising and Professional Development, and received additional mentorship from the Presidential Committee on Distinguished Fellowships.

      “Ayo has worked hard to develop his vision and to express it in ways that will capture the imagination of the broader world. It is a thrill to see him recognized this year as a Rhodes Scholar,” says Professor Nancy Kanwisher, who co-chairs the committee along with Professor Will Broadhead.

      Ayodeji graduated from MIT in 2022 with BS degrees in chemical engineering and management. He is currently an associate at Boston Consulting Group.

      He is passionate about championing reliable energy access across the African landscape and fostering culturally inclusive communities. As a Rhodes Scholar, he will pursue an MSc in energy systems and an MSc in global governance and diplomacy.

      During his time at MIT, Ayodeji’s curiosity for energy innovations was fueled by his research on perovskite solar cells under the MIT Energy Initiative. He then went on to intern at Pioneer Natural Resources where he explored the boundless applications of machine learning tools in completions. At BCG, Ayodeji supports both public and private sector clients on a variety of renewable energy topics including clean energy transition, decarbonization roadmaps, and workforce development.

      Ayodeji’s community-oriented mindset led him to team up with a group of friends and partner with the Northeast Children’s Trust (NECT), an organization that helps children affected by the Boko Haram insurgency in northeastern Nigeria. The project, sponsored by Davis Projects for Peace and MIT’s PKG Center, expanded NECT’s programs via an offline, portable classroom server.

      Ayodeji served as an undergraduate representative on the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. He was also vice president of the MIT African Students’ Association and a coordinator for the annual MIT International Students Orientation. More

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      in Environment

      New clean air and water labs to bring together researchers, policymakers to find climate solutions

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      MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is launching the Clean Air and Water Labs, with support from Community Jameel, to generate evidence-based solutions aimed at increasing access to clean air and water.

      Led by J-PAL’s Africa, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and South Asia regional offices, the labs will partner with government agencies to bring together researchers and policymakers in areas where impactful clean air and water solutions are most urgently needed.

      Together, the labs aim to improve clean air and water access by informing the scaling of evidence-based policies and decisions of city, state, and national governments that serve nearly 260 million people combined.

      The Clean Air and Water Labs expand the work of J-PAL’s King Climate Action Initiative, building on the foundational support of King Philanthropies, which significantly expanded J-PAL’s work at the nexus of climate change and poverty alleviation worldwide. 

      Air pollution, water scarcity and the need for evidence 

      Africa, MENA, and South Asia are on the front lines of global air and water crises. 

      “There is no time to waste investing in solutions that do not achieve their desired effects,” says Iqbal Dhaliwal, global executive director of J-PAL. “By co-generating rigorous real-world evidence with researchers, policymakers can have the information they need to dedicate resources to scaling up solutions that have been shown to be effective.”

      In India, about 75 percent of households did not have drinking water on premises in 2018. In MENA, nearly 90 percent of children live in areas facing high or extreme water stress. Across Africa, almost 400 million people lack access to safe drinking water. 

      Simultaneously, air pollution is one of the greatest threats to human health globally. In India, extraordinary levels of air pollution are shortening the average life expectancy by five years. In Africa, rising indoor and ambient air pollution contributed to 1.1 million premature deaths in 2019. 

      There is increasing urgency to find high-impact and cost-effective solutions to the worsening threats to human health and resources caused by climate change. However, data and evidence on potential solutions are limited.

      Fostering collaboration to generate policy-relevant evidence 

      The Clean Air and Water Labs will foster deep collaboration between government stakeholders, J-PAL regional offices, and researchers in the J-PAL network. 

      Through the labs, J-PAL will work with policymakers to:

      co-diagnose the most pressing air and water challenges and opportunities for policy innovation;
      expand policymakers’ access to and use of high-quality air and water data;
      co-design potential solutions informed by existing evidence;
      co-generate evidence on promising solutions through rigorous evaluation, leveraging existing and new data sources; and
      support scaling of air and water policies and programs that are found to be effective through evaluation. 
      A research and scaling fund for each lab will prioritize resources for co-generated pilot studies, randomized evaluations, and scaling projects. 

      The labs will also collaborate with C40 Cities, a global network of mayors of the world’s leading cities that are united in action to confront the climate crisis, to share policy-relevant evidence and identify opportunities for potential new connections and research opportunities within India and across Africa.

      This model aims to strengthen the use of evidence in decision-making to ensure solutions are highly effective and to guide research to answer policymakers’ most urgent questions. J-PAL Africa, MENA, and South Asia’s strong on-the-ground presence will further bridge research and policy work by anchoring activities within local contexts. 

      “Communities across the world continue to face challenges in accessing clean air and water, a threat to human safety that has only been exacerbated by the climate crisis, along with rising temperatures and other hazards,” says George Richards, director of Community Jameel. “Through our collaboration with J-PAL and C40 in creating climate policy labs embedded in city, state, and national governments in Africa and South Asia, we are committed to innovative and science-based approaches that can help hundreds of millions of people enjoy healthier lives.”

      J-PAL Africa, MENA, and South Asia will formally launch Clean Air and Water Labs with government partners over the coming months. J-PAL is housed in the MIT Department of Economics, within the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. More

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      in Energy

      Bringing sustainable and affordable electricity to all

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      When MIT electrical engineer Reja Amatya PhD ’12 arrived in Rwanda in 2015, she was whisked off to a village. She saw that diesel generators provided power to the local health center, bank, and shops, but like most of rural Rwanda, Karambi’s 200 homes did not have electricity. Amatya knew the hilly terrain would make it challenging to connect the village to high-voltage lines from the capital, Kigali, 50 kilometers away.

      While many consider electricity a basic human right, there are places where people have never flipped a light switch. Among the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals is global access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy by 2030. Recently, the U.N. reported that progress in global electrification had slowed due to the challenge of reaching those hardest to reach.

      Researchers from the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid created Waya Energy Inc., a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup commercializing MIT-developed planning and analysis software, to help governments determine the most cost-effective ways to provide electricity to all their citizens.

      The researchers’ 2015 trip to Rwanda marked the beginning of four years of phone calls, Zoom meetings, and international travel to help the east African country — still reeling from the 1994 genocide that killed more than a million people — develop a national electrification strategy and extend its power infrastructure.

      Amatya, Waya president and one of five Waya co-founders, knew that electrifying Karambi and the rest of the country would provide new opportunities for work, education, and connections — and the ability to charge cellphones, often an expensive and inconvenient undertaking.

      To date, Waya — with funding from the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank for Latin America, and the World Bank — has helped governments develop electrification plans in 22 countries on almost every continent, including in refugee camps in sub-Saharan Africa’s Sahel and Chad regions, where violence has led to 3 million internally displaced people.

      “With a modeling and visualization tool like ours, we are able to look at the entire spectrum of need and demand and say, ‘OK, what might be the most optimized solution?’” Amatya says.

      More than 15 graduate students and researchers from MIT and Comillas contributed to the development of Waya’s software under the supervision of Robert Stoner, the interim director at MITEI, and Ignacio Pérez-Arriaga, a visiting professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management from Comillas. Pérez-Arriaga looks at how changing electricity use patterns have forced utilities worldwide to rethink antiquated business models.

      The team’s Reference Electrification Model (REM) software pulls information from population density maps, satellite images, infrastructure data, and geospatial points of interest to determine where extending the grid will be most cost-effective and where other solutions would be more practical.

      “I always say we are agnostic to the technology,” Amatya says. “Traditionally, the only way to provide long-term reliable access was through the grid, but that’s changing. In many developing countries, there are many more challenges for utilities to provide reliable service.”

      Off-grid solutions

      Waya co-founder Stoner, who is also the founding director of the MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design, recognized early on that connecting homes to existing infrastructure was not always economically feasible. What’s more, billions of people with grid connections had unreliable access due to uneven regulation and challenging terrain.

      With Waya co-founders Andres Gonzalez-Garcia, a MITEI affiliate researcher, and Professor Fernando de Cuadra Garcia of Comillas, Pérez-Arriaga and Stoner led a team that developed a set of principles to guide universal regional electrification. Their approach — which they dubbed the Integrated Distribution Framework — incorporates elements of optimal planning as well as novel business models and regulation. Getting all three right is “necessary,” Stoner says, “if you want a viable long-term outcome.”

      Amatya says, “Initially, we designed REM to understand what the level of demand is in these countries with very rural and poor populations, and what the system should look like to serve it. We took a lot of that input into developing the model.” In 2019, Waya was created to commercialize the software and add consulting to the package of services the team provides.

      Now, in addition to advising governments and regulators on how to expand existing grids, Waya proposes options such as a mini-grid, powered by renewables like wind, hydropower, or solar, to serve single villages or large-scale mini-grid solutions for larger areas. In some cases, an even more localized, scalable solution is a mesh grid, which might consist of a single solar panel for a few houses that, over time, can be expanded and ultimately connected to the main grid.

      The REM software has been used to design off-grid systems for remote and mountainous regions in Uganda, Peru, Nigeria, Cambodia, Indonesia, India, and elsewhere. When Tata Power, India’s largest integrated power company, saw how well mini-grids would serve parts of east India, the company created a mini-grid division called Tata Renewables.

      Amatya notes that the REM software enables her to come up with an entire national electrification plan from her workspace in Cambridge. But site visits and on-the-ground partners are critical in helping the Waya team understand existing systems, engage with clients to assess demand, and identify stakeholders. In Haiti, an energy consultant reported that the existing grid had typically been operational only six out of every 24 hours. In Karambi, University of Rwanda students surveyed the village’s 200 families and helped lead a community-wide meeting.

      Waya connects with on-the-ground experts and agencies “who can engage directly with the government and other stakeholders, because many times those are the doors that we knock on,” Amatya says. “Local energy ministries, utilities, and regulators have to be open to regulatory change. They have to be open to working with financial institutions and new technology.”

      The goals of regulators, energy providers, funding agencies, and government officials must align in real time “to provide reliable access to energy for a billion people,” she says.

      Moving past challenges

      Growing up in Kathmandu, Amatya used to travel to remote villages with her father, an electrical engineer who designed cable systems for landlines for Nepal Telecom. She remembers being fascinated by the high-voltage lines crisscrossing Nepal on these trips. Now, she points out utility poles to her children and explains how the distribution lines carry power from local substations to customers.

      After majoring in engineering science and physics at Smith College, Amatya completed her PhD in electrical engineering at MIT in 2012. Within two years, she was traveling to off-grid communities in India as a research scientist exploring potential technologies for providing access. There were unexpected challenges: At the time, digitized geospatial data didn’t exist for many regions. In India in 2013, the team used phones to take pictures of paper maps spread out on tables. Team members now scour digital data available through Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and other sources for useful geographical information. 

      It’s one thing to create a plan, Amatya says, but how it gets utilized and implemented becomes a big question. With all the players involved — funding agencies, elected officials, utilities, private companies, and regulators within the countries themselves — it’s sometimes hard to know who’s responsible for next steps.

      “Besides providing technical expertise, our team engages with governments to, let’s say, develop a financial plan or an implementation plan,” she says. Ideally, Waya hopes to stay involved with each project long enough to ensure that its proposal becomes the national electrification strategy of the country. That’s no small feat, given the multiple players, the opaque nature of government, and the need to enact a regulatory framework where none may have existed.

      For Rwanda, Waya identified areas without service, estimated future demand, and proposed the most cost-effective ways to meet that demand with a mix of grid and off-grid solutions. Based on the electrification plan developed by the Waya team, officials have said they hope to have the entire country electrified by 2024.

      In 2017, by the time the team submitted its master plan, which included an off-grid solution for Karambi, Amatya was surprised to learn that electrification in the village had already occurred — an example, she says, of the challenging nature of local planning.

      Perhaps because of Waya’s focus and outreach efforts, Karambi had become a priority. However it happened, Amatya is happy that Karambi’s 200 families finally have access to electricity. More

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      in Energy

      Addressing food insecurity in arid regions with an open-source evaporative cooling chamber design

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      Anyone who has ever perspired on a hot summer day understands the principle — and critical value — of evaporative cooling. Our bodies produce droplets of sweat when we overheat, and with a dry breeze or nearby fan those droplets will evaporate, absorbing heat in the process creating a welcome cool feeling.

      That same scientific principle, known as evaporative cooling, can be a game-changer for preserving fruits and vegetables grown on smallholder farms, where the wilting dry heat can quickly degrade freshly harvested produce. If those just-picked red peppers and leafy greens are not consumed in short order, or quickly transferred to cold — or at least cool — storage, much of it can go to waste.

      Now, MIT Professor Leon Glicksman of the Building Technology Program within the Department of Architecture, and Research Engineer Eric Verploegen of MIT D-Lab have released their open-source design for a forced-air evaporative cooling chamber that can be built in a used shipping container and powered by either grid electricity or built-in solar panels. With a capacity of 168 produce crates, the chamber offers great promise for smallholder farmers in hot, dry climates who need an affordable method for quickly bringing down the temperature of freshly harvested fruit and vegetables to ensure they stay fresh.

      “Delicate fruits and vegetables are most vulnerable to spoilage if they are picked during the day,” says Verploegen, a longtime proponent of using evaporative cooling to reduce post-harvest waste. “And if refrigerated cold rooms aren’t feasible or affordable,” he continues, “evaporative cooling can make a big difference for farmers and the communities they feed.”

      Verploegen has made evaporative cooling the focus of his work since 2016, initially focusing on small-scale evaporative cooling “Zeer” pots, typically with a capacity between 10 and 100 liters and great for household use, as well as larger double-brick-walled chambers known as zero-energy cooling chambers or ZECCs, which can store between six and 16 vegetable crates at a time. These designs rely on passive airflow. The newly released design for the forced-air evaporative cooling chamber is differentiated from these two more modest designs by the active airflow system, as well as by significantly larger capacity.

      In 2019, Verploegen turned his attention to the idea of building a larger evaporative cooling room and joined forces with Glicksman to explore using forced, instead of passive, airflow to cool fruit and vegetables. After studying existing cold storage options and conducting user research with farmers in Kenya, they came up with the idea to use active evaporative cooling with a used shipping container as the structure of the chamber. As the Covid-19 pandemic was ramping up in 2020, they procured a used 10-foot shipping container, installed it in the courtyard area outside D-Lab near Village Street, and went to work on a prototype of the forced-air evaporative cooling chamber.

      Here’s how it works: Industrial fans draw hot, dry air into the chamber, which is passed through a porous wet pad. The resulting cool and humid air is then forced through the crates of fruits and vegetables stored inside the chamber. The air is then directed through the raised floor and to a channel between the insulation and the exterior container wall, where it flows to the exhaust holes near the top of the side walls.

      Leon Glicksman, a professor of building technology and mechanical engineering, drew on his previous research in natural ventilation and airflow in buildings to come up with the vertical forced-air design pattern for the chamber. “The key to the design is the close control of the airflow strength, and its direction,” he says. “The strength of the airflow passing directly through the crates of fruits and vegetables, and the airflow pathway itself, are what makes this system work so well. The design promotes rapid cooling of a harvest taken directly from the field.”

      In addition to the novel and effective airflow system, the forced-air evaporative cooling chamber represents so much of what D-Lab is known for in its work in low-resourced and off-grid communities: developing low-cost and low-carbon-footprint technologies with partners. Evaporative cooling is no different. Whether connected to the electrical grid or run from solar panels, the forced-air chamber consumes one-quarter the power of refrigerated cold rooms. And, as the chamber is designed to be built in a used shipping container — ubiquitous the world over — the project is a great example of up-cycling.

      Piloting the design

      As with earlier investigations, Verploegen, Glicksman, and their colleagues have worked closely with farmers and community members. For the forced-air system, the team engaged with community partners who are living the need for better cooling and storage conditions for their produce in the climate conditions where evaporative cooling works best. Two partners, one in Kenya and one in India, each built a pilot chamber, testing and informing the process alongside the work being done at MIT.

      In Kenya, where smallholder farms produce 63 percent of total food consumed and over 50 percent of smallholder produce is lost post-harvest, they worked with Solar Freeze, a cold storage company located in in Kibwezi, Kenya. Solar Freeze, whose founder Dysmus Kisilu was a 2019 MIT D-Lab Scale-Ups Fellow, built an off-grid forced-air evaporative cooling chamber at a produce market between Nairobi and Mombasa at a cost of $15,000, powered by solar photovoltaic panels. “The chamber is offering a safety net against huge post-harvest losses previously experienced by local smallholder farmers,” comments Peter Mumo, an entrepreneur and local politician who oversaw the construction of the Solar Freeze chamber in Makuni County, Kenya.

      As much as 30 percent of fruits and vegetables produced in India are wasted each year due to insufficient cold storage capacity, lack of cold storage close to farms, poor transportation infrastructure, and other gaps in the cold chain. Although the climate varies across the subcontinent, the hot desert climate there, such as in Bhuj where the Hunnarshala Foundation is headquartered, is perfect for evaporative cooling. Hunnarshala signed on to build an on-grid system for $8,100, which they located at an organic farm near Bhuj. “We have really encouraging results,” says Mahavir Acharya, executive director of Hunnarshala Foundation. “In peak summer, when the temperature is 42 [Celsius] we are able to get to 26 degrees [Celsius] inside and 95 percent humidity, which is really good conditions for vegetables to remain fresh for three, four, five, six days. In winter we tested [and saw temperatures reduced from] 35 degrees to 24 degrees [Celsius], and for seven days the quality was quite good.”

      Getting the word out

      With the concept validated and pilots well established, the next step is spreading the word.

      “We’re continuing to test and optimize the system, both in Kenya and India, as well as our test chambers here at MIT,” says Verploegen. “We will continue piloting with users and deploying with farmers and vendors, gathering data on the thermal performance, the shelf life of fruits and vegetables in the chamber, and how using the technology impacts the users. And, we’re also looking to engage with cold storage providers who might want to build this or others in the horticulture value chain such as farmer cooperatives, individual farmers, and local governments.”

      To reach the widest number of potential users, Verploegen and the team chose not to pursue a patent and instead set up a website to disseminate the open-source design with detailed guidance on how to build a forced-air evaporative cooling chamber. In addition to the extensive printed documentation, well-illustrated with detailed CAD drawings and video, the team has created instructional videos.

      As co-principal investigator in the early stages of the project, MIT professor of mechanical engineering Dan Frey contributed to the market research phase of the project and the initial conception of chamber design. “These forced-air evaporative cooling chambers have great potential, and the open-source approach is an excellent choice for this project,” says Frey. “The design’s release is a significant milestone on the path to positive impacts.”

      The forced-air evaporative cooling chamber research and design have been supported by the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab through an India Grant, Seed Grant, and a Solutions Grant. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Environment

      US and UAE governments highlight early warning system for climate resilience

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      The following is a joint announcement from MIT and Community Jameel.

      An international project to build community resilience to the effects of climate change, launched by Community Jameel and a research team at MIT, has been recognized as an innovation sprint at the 2023 summit of the United States’ and United Arab Emirates’ Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM4C).

      The Jameel Observatory Climate Resilience Early Warning System Network (Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet), one of MIT’s five Climate Grand Challenges flagship projects, aims to empower communities worldwide, specifically within the agriculture sector, to adapt to climate shocks by launching cross-sector collaborations and by combining state-of-the-art climate and socioeconomic forecasting techniques with technological solutions to support communities’ resilience.

      AIM4C is a joint initiative of the U.S. and U.A.E. that seeks to enhance climate action by accelerating agriculture and food systems innovation and investment. Innovation sprints are selected by AIM4C to accelerate their impact following a competitive process that considers scientific excellence and financial support.

      “As we launch Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet, the AIM4C summit offers a great opportunity to share our plans and initial work with all those who are interested in enhancing the capacity of agricultural communities in vulnerable countries to deal with challenges of climate change,” says Elfatih Eltahir, HM King Bhumibol Professor of Hydrology and Climate at MIT and project leader of the Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet.

      Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet seeks to bridge the gap between the knowledge about climate change created at research institutions such as MIT and the local farming communities that are adapting to the impacts of climate change. By effectively informing and engaging local communities, the project seeks to enable farmers to sustainably increase their agricultural productivity and income.     

      The Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet will initially pilot in Bangladesh and Sudan, working with local partners BRAC, a leading international nonprofit headquartered in Bangladesh, and the Agricultural Research Corporation-Sudan, the principal agricultural research arm of the Sudanese government, and with MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), the global research center working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Beginning in southwestern Bangladesh, the Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet will integrate next-generation climate forecasting, predictive analytics, new technologies, and financial instruments. In East Africa, with a focus on Sudan, the initiative will emphasize adopting modern technology to use a better variety of heat-resistant seeds, increasing the use of targeted fertilizers, strengthening soils through soil fertility mapping combined with data modeling, and emphasizing vertical expansion of agriculture over traditional horizontal expansion. The work in Sudan is extensible to other regions in Africa. Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet’s activities and timeline will be reevaluated as the team monitors the ongoing situation in Sudan.

      Using local climate insights, communities will be empowered to adapt proactively to climate change by optimally planning their agricultural activities, targeting emergent economic opportunities, and proactively managing risks from climate change.

      George Richards, director of Community Jameel, says: “Community Jameel is proud to be collaborating with MIT, BRAC, and the Agricultural Research Corporation-Sudan to empower agricultural communities to adapt to the ever-growing challenges arising from climate change — challenges which, as we are seeing acutely in Sudan, are compounded by other crises. We welcome the support of the U.S. and U.A.E. governments in selecting the Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet as an AIM4C innovation sprint.”

      Md Liakath Ali, director of climate change, urban development, and disaster risk management at BRAC, says: “Over our five decades working alongside climate-vulnerable communities in Bangladesh, BRAC has seen firsthand how locally led climate adaptation helps protect lives and livelihoods. BRAC is proud to work with Community Jameel and MIT to empower vulnerable communities to proactively adapt to the impacts of climate change.”

      The Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet was launched at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh as part of the Jameel Observatory, an international collaboration launched in 2021 that focuses on convening researchers and practitioners who use data and technology to help communities adapt to the impacts of climate change and short-term climate shocks.

      The Jameel Observatory focuses on using data and evidence to prepare for and act on environmental shocks as well as those impacts of climate change and variability which threaten human and environmental well-being. With a special focus on low- and middle-income countries, the Jameel Observatory works at the interface of climate, natural disasters, agricultural and food systems, and health. It emphasizes the need to incorporate local as well as scientific knowledge to prepare and act in anticipation of environmental shocks.

      Launched in 2020, MIT’s Climate Grand Challenges initiative is designed to mobilize the Institute’s research community around tackling the most difficult unsolved climate problems in emissions reduction, climate adaptation and resilience, risk forecasting, carbon removal, and understanding the human impacts of climate change. MIT selected 27 teams as finalists from a field of nearly 100 initial proposals. In 2022, five teams with the most promising concepts were announced as multi-year flagship projects. More