Two young winners of the most prestigious environment prize in history are joining the Forum for Global Challenges.
Earthshot Prize winner and co-founder of Enapter, Vaitea Cowan.
Earthshot Prize winners Vaitea Cowan and Kevin Kung will take to the podium to deliver keynote speeches to delegates at the global event, adding their voices to an event that will help to make the world a fairer, more sustainable place. The event takes place from 3 to 5 May at Birmingham’s International Convention Centre.
They will be joined by David Nabarro - Special Envoy of WHO Director General on COVID-19, Director of 4SD, Chair of Global Health and Co-Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London - as well as Jennifer Morgan, Greenpeace International Executive Director.
Vaitea Cowan is one of the three co-founders of Enapter, a project leading the charge to turn renewable electricity into emission-free hydrogen gas that is fuelling cars and planes, powering industry and heating homes.
Kevin Kung is the co-founder of Takachar, a company specializing in using an innovative oxygen-lean torrefaction system to covert biomass into fertilizer and solid fuel that small farmers can use.
Vaitea and Kevin are also joined by Earthshot Prize finalist Olugbenga Olubanjo – founder of Reeddi Inc., which provides clean, reliable, and affordable electricity to individuals, households, and businesses operating in the energy-poor regions of the world.
Taking place ahead of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, the Forum will generate and share solutions to some of the most pressing challenges faced by our planet and its people, from climate change and destruction of the natural world, to poverty and rising inequalities, and the effects of the global pandemic.
The Forum brings together world leaders, business and thought leaders, policy makers, practitioners, and academics from around the world to generate real-world solutions to global challenges – discover more about attending the Forum.
I would like to thank David, Jennifer, Vaitea, Kevin and Olugbenga for helping us realise our vision for the Forum. We look forward to welcoming them all to Birmingham to share in vibrant discussions that will help to make our world a fairer, more sustainable place. The solution to so many of these issues lies in collaboration - precisely what we want to inspire by hosting the Forum for Global Challenges in Birmingham.
The Forum for Global Challenges will find, share and promote technological, policy, societal and behavioural solutions to climate change and inequalities. The Forum will focus on the key topics of the green economy, restoring nature, the future of cities, mobility, the future of education and employment, health and wellbeing, food security and access to the digital world. These will be examined through the lenses of post-COVID recovery, strategies for transformation, ethical and effective leadership and interconnectedness.
David Nabarro is Chair of Global Health and Co-Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at the Imperial College London. He supports systems leadership for sustainable development through his Switzerland based social enterprise 4SD. From March 2020, David is appointed Special Envoy of WHO Director-General on COVID-19.
David secured his medical qualification in 1974 and has worked in over 50 countries – in communities and hospitals, governments, civil society, universities, and in United Nations (UN) programs. He worked for the British government in the 1990s as head of Health and Population and director for Human Development in the UK Department for International Development. From 1999 to 2017 he held leadership roles in the UN system (starting with the World Health Organization and finishing in the office of the UN Secretary-General). He focused on disease outbreaks and health systems, food insecurity and nutrition, then climate change and sustainable development. In October 2018, David received the World Food Prize together with Lawrence Haddad for building action coalitions for better action on nutrition across the Sustainable Development Goals.
Vaitea Cowan is one of the three cofounders of Enapter. Sebastian, Jan and Vaitea worked on the Phi Suea House in 2016, which became a lighthouse project for green hydrogen in Southeast Asia. In 2017, they cofounded Enapter and grew the team from 11 to 200 by 2021. Today, Vaitea heads Enapter’s communications and is based in the Berlin office. Vaitea is on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Energy 2020. Among other awards, she supported Enapter in winning the inaugural Earthshot Prize “Fix Our Climate” launched by Prince William and The Royal Foundation. Vaitea graduated with a Bachelors in Commerce from Concordia University, John Molson School of Business (Montreal). Her personal mission is to bring green hydrogen to the islands and to hire more women along the way.
Kevin Kung is the co-founder and CTO of Takachar since 2018. From 2012 to 2017, Kevin built Takachar’s core technology as part of his Ph.D. research in the field of biofuels and renewable energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where through the support of the Tata Trusts, he travelled to India extensively and designed the technology to meet specific local needs. Prior to that, Kevin had six years of experience conducting engineering design in resource-constrained settings, including borehole restoration in Uganda, interlocking stabilized construction materials in Ghana, and renewable energy systems in Kenya and India. In 2015, Kevin co-founded a company (Safi Organics) in Kenya that produces carbon-negative, high-yield fertilizer from crop residues, improving farmers’ harvest yields by 30 percent. He helped grow the company to 10 full-time employees, 3,500 customers, and financial breakeven.
Jennifer Morgan is currently the International Executive Director of the Greenpeace International. Previously, she was the Global Director of the Climate Program at the World Resources Institute. In this capacity, she oversaw the Institute’s work on climate change issues and guided WRI strategy in helping countries, governments, and individuals take positive action toward achieving a zero-carbon future. She was responsible for day-to-day management of the 60+ person program, and worked closely with the WRI China, India, Brazil and Indonesia offices. In addition, Ms. Morgan was WRI’s lead representative at international climate meetings, including the UNFCCC negotiations. She has published on international climate policy issues.
Olubanjo Olugbenga (Olu) is the Founder & CEO of Reeddi Inc and a MASc (Master of Applied Science) Graduate of Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto. Olu’s award-winning Startup, Reeddi Inc., leverages its proprietary technology to innovatively provide clean, reliable, and affordable electricity to individuals, households, and businesses operating in the energy-poor regions of the world.
Reeddi Inc. currently serves more than 600 households and businesses monthly in Nigeria and have been recognized by organizations including MIT, Stanford, Cisco, IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer), and ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), World Energy Council, and the German Energy Agency. His startup proprietary Innovation, the Reeddi Capsules, was recently nominated as one of Prince William’s 1 million pounds prestigious EarthShot Prize 15 finalists.
Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor (interdisciplinary research)
Staff profile of Professor Hisham Mehanna, InHANSE, Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham
