More Powerful: D-Rev’s Design Revolution
In the making of my film Powerful: Energy for Everyone, I had the occasion to visit many communities, see interesting projects and interview passionate people of all stripes. I shot over 100 hours of video. Not all could be squeezed into a 95-minute film. This is one of the stories that I would like to have included if I had the space.
It is easy for us, the people who have never known a life without easy access to cheap energy, to forget that as many as two billion people do not. Energy choices for many are limited and hard to come by. In many rural villages in Africa, South America and elsewhere, the only source of light is a burnable fuel like kerosene which can be scarce, expensive and polluting or batteries which are hard to come by and must be regularly replaced. Enter D-Rev — the design revolution entrepreneurs. Greg Lee and Amanda Gonzalez are two young entrepreneurs with engineering training and a social mission. They have developed a “solar concentrator” that generates electricity from the sun, using an elegant design and inexpensive materials. It has the potential to change lives, and even save lives.
David Chernushenko
