In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re sharing a series of posts highlighting the significant contributions of women in shaping and driving the energy industry and STEM fields, as well as important initiatives to advance equal access to clean, affordable energy.
Neha Misra, Co-founder of Solar Sister and Solar Suitcase Ambassador for We Care Solar
Neha Misra is an Indian-origin solar innovator and economist with an impressive and lengthy resume of endeavors focused on championing women’s rights, climate justice, and equitable access to clean energy. Based in the U.S., she is a Presidential Leadership Scholar in a partnership program between the presidential centers of George W. Bush, William J. Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Lyndon B. Johnson that aims to bring together a select group of leaders committed to solving society’s greatest challenges.
Neha’s work has included significant focus on the nexus of renewable energy, women’s health and economic empowerment. Studies from institutions including the United Nations, World Bank and major universities have repeatedly shown that women’s access to energy (or lack thereof) has a notable impact on economic, social, educational, and health outcomes. Ensuring equal access to clean, affordable energy creates cascading improvements for women around the world.
Solar Sister
Two groundbreaking organizations have been vital in Neha’s global energy journey. The first, Solar Sister, which she co-founded, is a “grassroots, market-based solution [addressing] the huge gender dimension of energy poverty, which disproportionately affects women all over the world” (Forbes, 2015). The organization empowers women as entrepreneurs to spread clean energy, including solar lights, mobile phone chargers, and clean cookstoves, across last-mile communities without easily accessible distribution channels. Solar Sister has been likened to Avon meets Best Buy for clean energy, “using women’s social capital to increase clean technology adoption.”
For over a decade, Neha played a pivotal role in scaling Solar Sister’s impact by building a network of over 5,000 Solar Sister entrepreneurs who have delivered life-transforming solar energy and clean cooking solutions to over 1.7 million people across Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. Clean cooking stoves not only help curb climate change, but more importantly, reduce indoor air pollution from fuel usage, which causes more deaths than malaria, HIV, and AIDS combined.
You can hear Neha discuss the life-changing benefits Solar Sister is bringing to women and families on the excellent Mothers of Invention podcast, hosted by comedian-writer Maeve Higgins and Mary Robinson, the first female President of Ireland and climate justice campaigner (an inspiring listen!). Support Solar Sister’s non-profit work here.
We Care Solar
Another pioneer renewable energy organization that Neha supports is We Care Solar, for which she has been a Solar Suitcase Ambassador since 2012. We Care Solar promotes safe motherhood and reduces maternal mortality in developing regions by providing health workers and midwives with reliable lighting, mobile communication, and medical devices using solar electricity.
Its award-winning We Care Solar Suitcase is an economical, easy-to-use portable power unit that provides health workers with highly efficient medical lighting and power for mobile communication, computers, and medical devices. By equipping off-grid medical clinics with solar power for urgent medical care, We Care Solar reduces maternal and infant morbidity and mortality and improves the quality of care in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Nepal, Liberia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. TIME Magazine selected the Solar Suitcase as one of the best inventions of 2019. You can read about the team, time, and talent behind this innovation here.
To date, over 6,000 Solar Suitcases have been installed in health centers around the world. These health centers have, in turn, served over 7 million mothers and newborns. Support We Care Solar’s non-profit work here.
About Neha Misra
For two decades, Neha’s diverse clean tech leadership has spanned demand forecasting for power plants in India, supporting people’s livelihoods with solar innovation in the world’s largest mangrove forest system, fostering North-South clean technology cooperation, training midwives in East Africa on optimal solar system usage in health centers, advising youth-led solar humanitarian action in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, mentoring solar women leaders globally, and building multi-cultural global cleantech teams that foster mutual care and inclusion.
For her pioneering work, she has been featured in Forbes, National Geographic, Ms. Magazine, the Huffington Post, United Nations Chronicle, and Voice of America, amongst others. Neha is a Spring 2016 Fellow for the Coaching Fellowship, which recognizes extraordinary women leaders globally, and a Summer 2019 Perennial Fellow for global transformational social change leadership.
Neha holds a Master of Business Economics degree from the University of Delhi, a Bachelor in Science with honors in Physics from St. Stephens College, India, and certificates in solar electric design from Solar Energy International, USA.
The Energy Spotlight Series in Honor of Women's History Month
- Post 1: Neha Misra
- Post 2: Mária Telkes
- Post 3: Yewande Akinola