We were in Malawi for three days when I asked a hospital midwife to tell me the word for pregnancy in Chichewa, the local language. “Pakati,” she told me. “What does that translate to?” I asked. “Between life and death.”
I looked at her soberly, taking in the significance of what she had [...]
On January 21st, 2013 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day) We Care Solar launched We Share Solar in collaboration with The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose and through the support of Applied Materials. Held in the newly opened TechLab of The Tech Museum, twelve We Share Solar teachers gathered with [...]
On January 21, 2013, The Tech Museum of Innovation is partnering with We Care Solar to launch an innovative hands-on program that gives youth a chance to link science and technology with international philanthropy. The newly opened TechLab will host the first “We Share Solar Suitcase” assembly program, allowing students to build rugged [...]
In October 2012, 14 women arrived in Berkeley, California to take part in a very unique workshop. Some arrived from Colorado, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington; others flew in from Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Mexico. Their objective? To learn to be installers and trainers in We Care Solar’s international programs.
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We Care Solar has an opportunity to transform Ugandan maternal health care under a new award entitled Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development. We Care Solar partnered with African Medical Research Foundation (AMREF) Uganda and the White Ribbon Alliance to create an integrative solution for maternal health [...]
“As we know, a pregnant woman can go into labor at any time,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development. “Her survival should not depend on daylight. That is why new initiatives like the solar suitcase are so valuable.”
Emphasizing the “especially heavy toll” energy poverty takes [...]
In a celebration of her 100th day in office, Malawi President Joyce Banda received a We Care Solar Suitcase on July 19, 2012, the first of more than a dozen portable solar electric systems headed to Malawi clinics that serve mothers and babies. (In photo, President Banda tested the suitcase. From left [...]
We Care Solar was given a platform to speak at the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development this week, sharing side event panels with Margaret Chan (Director-General, WHO), Kandeh Yumkella (Chair, UN Energy; Dir-Gen UNIDO), Richenda Van Leeuwen (Exec Dir, Energy and Climate, UN Foundation) and Lakshmi Puri (Deputy Secretary, UN Women), among [...]
David Bank wrote this article about the UN Foundation Powering Healthcare workshop; it was originally posted on Impact IQ on May 7, 2012.
“Chance favors the connected mind,” is Steven Johnson’s short answer to the question posed by his book, “Where Good Ideas Come From.”
Leading minds in global health and sustainable [...]
In Afghanistan, pregnant woman and infants face some of the highest risks of dying in the world. USAID General Development Officer, Chris Andrew, recognized the potential of the Solar Suitcase to improve delivery of maternal and child health care, and requested two Solar Suitcases to demonstrate to U.S. and Afghan officials before piloting [...]
