Rome, October 25th 2018
Enel Foundation announced today the launch of the Open Africa Power 2019 call for applications. Open Africa Power is an education venture initiated by Enel Foundation in 2018 in partnership with top Academic institutions such as Strathmore University from Kenya, the University of Addis Ababa from Ethiopia, and Italian institutions such as the Politecnico di Torino, the Politecnico di Milano, Bocconi University and Florence School of Regulation.
The program aims to forge a new generation of African leaders deeply engaged with their countries clean energy future. After involving 29 selected candidates in the inaugural module of the first edition, Open Africa Power’s second edition, taking place in 2019, will engage up to 60 African students and alumni in a series of professional development and leadership activities, comprising residential training modules in Ethiopia and Italy in 2019.
Open Africa Power program is open to high-profile African graduates wishing to acquire an holistic knowhow of the electricity sector, enhancing the technical, regulatory and business skills required to work in the private and public sector towards the electrification of Africa. Precisely for this reason, from this year, candidates living abroad but wanting to relocate back to Africa will also be admitted.
The call for applications is available at Enel Foundation website and is open until November 26th 2018, with the course due to start in January 28th 2019 in Ethiopia.
The announcement was made on the sidelines of an important Italy-Africa Conference, which gathered high level and governmental representatives from multiple African Countries in Rome in October 24-25 for a meeting organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MFAIC). At the meeting, the capacity-building program launched by Enel Foundation was presented as a case study on human development in Africa showing the role of education in the transition to a clean energy future.
Rachel Kyte, CEO of SEforALL, and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All, also endorsed the launch of Open Africa Power 2019 call for applications commenting : “For us, being able to partner with Enel Foundation in Open Africa Power is very important. These are the kinds of transformational initiatives that bring up the power, vision, opportunity and potential of young people in Africa to transform society based on the technology, finance and policy know-how that is already existing in the world, which just needs to be deployed more quickly than is already the case.”