Johanna Hartmann
Project Manager Knowledge Mangement and Energy Access
Today one in five people worldwide lack access to electricity, while every third person cooks on unhealthy fireplaces. First-hand knowledge on modern and sustainable energy solutions often only exists locally or in fragments and thus is difficult for individuals to access. Therefore, there is a great need to facilitate and expand the diffusion of these technologies in developing countries through knowledge exchange and collaboration. Via a platform that everyone can access and actively share stories: Energypedia is a wiki platform for collaborative knowledge exchange on renewable energy, energy access, and energy efficiency topics in developing countries. www.energypedia.info
Recognizing that development in the 21st century requires that all actors have access to information, energypedia is working towards removing the knowledge barriers and expanding the diffusion of information. With energypedia, I want to empower energy practitioners by fostering free knowledge exchange, global collaboration and mutual learning on renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy access for all.
One of the main strengths of energypedia is its user-driven focus i.e. all the content on energypedia has been generated by the over 8,200 users and is free to read, edit and share by all other users. So far, energypedia hosts over 4,200 wiki articles divided into 13 portals and including over 700 files (pdfs, excel files and jpgs) on renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy access topics. The experiences are not isolated or lost, but shared among a broad network of experts.
Another innovative strength of energypedia is the type of the content: it ranges from articles explaining basic renewable energy terminology to comprehensive reports on renewable energy projects from all over the world. Every month over 45,000 unique visitors read and share on energypedia. This makes energypedia a one-stop knowledge destination for information on energy for everybody. This is possible because it is based on free, open source software. This concept could be replicated for all other topics of the SDGs as well.
I invite everyone to join this movement. Knowledge is created by people for people!