A couple months ago I met Nicolas Morgan at the Toronto Green Drinks and he was telling me about this little company he has with his brother that will revolutionize the solar energy industry. When he described the technology and where it came from it sounded like the news was a little too good. It’s great to see that Morgan Solar is getting good press coverage about how their simple way of capturing sunbeams will help the developing world.
Following through on a lifelong goal, Jean Paul then went to the Democratic Republic of the Congo where he handled logistics and construction projects for Doctors Without Borders. To him, the work was loaded with meaning, and while he returned a year later, he spoke of going back to continue with the cause.
That’s when his father, Eric Morgan, stepped in. He talked his son out of going back, arguing that if he really wanted to help people he had an obligation to use his smarts to solve bigger problems.
Jean Paul stepped up to the challenge. While working as a research associate at the Catholic University of Chile (where his family has roots), he decided that the best place to focus on was energy.
“I came to realize electricity was a fundamental human right and if you don’t have electricity you’re living in the dark ages,” he recounts. “I decided there to devote my life to the problem of developing inexpensive, ubiquitous electricity. Solar was the obvious choice.”
At first, Jean Paul looked for solar companies he might like to work for, but after researching the market he quickly found there was a technology gap that needed to be filled. Most of the solar-system designs that appealed to him were clumsy and complicated. He decided his goal should be to come up with a novel design that eliminates that complexity.
Thanks to Shea for the tip to the article!
This just popped up in my google alerts – thanks for the mention and I have to say, what a great idea for a blog. Adding you to my RSS feeds right now.
I seem to have developed a bad habit of being out of town during Green Drinks, the last two months I was and I’ll miss it again this month – maybe we can connect at the next one.
Cheers,
Nic Morgan.
Hey I wonder if you’ve heard of Brazilian and Ashoka fellow Fábio Luiz de Oliveira Rosa who continues to try to bring electricity to Brazilian farmers? The challenges he has faced are very instructive. If Nic is working in Chile I would think some of the concerns would be the same.
“Fabio’s pilot project from 1984 to 1988 changed that situation for 400 rural families in Palmares and reaped results beyond his expectations. Not only did low-cost electrification stop the flow of residents to cities, it reversed the flow. A study two years after the project’s implementation showed that one in every three beneficiaries was someone who returned from the city to resume living in his former rural area. This was in large part because of the newly affordable electric service.” – from http://www.ashoka.org/node/3291
PS I too like your blog.
Dawn