July 11, 2018 — IEEE and the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) recently announced registration is now open for the Empower a Billion Lives (EBL) global competition, where teams will propose economical and sustainable energy access solutions to energy poverty.

Solving energy poverty could result in an additional 3.8 GT per year of carbon emissions, IEEE and PELS say. This competition aims to encourage innovative and viable solutions that can sustainably scale to 1 billion customers through crowdsourcing regionally relevant innovation to accelerate the deployment of energy access solutions in the affected areas.

Aligned with IEEE’s mission to advance technology for the benefit of humanity, the EBL initiative will encourage multi-disciplinary teams consisting of innovators, entrepreneurs and researchers to develop and demonstrate cost-effective solutions. A tutorial on the competition is available on the EBL website.

Teams from small and large companies, entrepreneurial start-ups and research institutions from around the world are invited to participate.

Currently, 125 teams have registered to compete. Regional competitions in South Asia, Pacific Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas will lead to a global final in the U.S. in 2019.