Dr. Payman Dehghanian, Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Director of Smart Grid Technologies at the GW Environmental & Energy Management Institute, was among 40 participants invited to attend the workshop “Electricity Access and Sustainable Business Model Educators.” This workshop, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), was held on Oct. 10-11, 2023, in Villanova, Pennsylvania, and involved educators, students, practitioners, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders from around the nation.
"Energy equity is not just important but an urgent and timely imperative. Attending the workshop was an enriching experience for me, filled with lots of great networking, knowledge sharing, recommendations, and next steps for enhancing and expanding electricity access education in the US,” said Dehghanian.
Centered on the core theme of energy access, which pertains to delivering energy in resource-constrained environments often found in developing nations and underserved communities, the workshop's primary objective was to foster discussions regarding electricity access and sustainable business education perspectives. It aimed to engage stakeholders, identify gaps and obstacles in improving and extending electricity access education, exchange best practices and resources across curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular activities, and deliberate on urgent and emerging issues related to energy sustainability and electricity access.