The ASHDEN Awards

The Ashden Awards were founded in 2001 to encourage the greater use of local sustainable energy to address climate change and alleviate poverty. Since then they have rewarded over 140 green energy champions across the UK and the developing world.

Ashden showcases and celebrates best practice, encourages the expansion and replication of winners’ work, raises awareness of the potential of local sustainable energy, and advocates on their winners’ behalf. For further information, including photos, films, and case studies on past winners, go to www.ashden.org.

The Ashden Patron is HRH The Prince of Wales.

The Magsaysay Award 

The Ramon Magsaysay Award is an annual award established to perpetuate former Philippine's President Ramon Magsaysay’s example of integrity in governance, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society. It is considered as the “Asian Nobel Prize”. The prize was established in April 1957 by the trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund based in New York City with the concurrence of the Philippine government.

The roster of Magsaysay awardees includes social and political leaders who have led independence movements; established, restored, or strengthened democratic institutions; and reformed inept government systems. Other awardees have modernized their post-war economies; preserved and promoted indigenous cultures; and pioneered in setting up basic human services programs in health, education, and social welfare especially for the poor and marginalized.

As scientists and doctors many Magsaysay Awardees have revolutionized agricultural production; led breakthroughs in disease control and cancer treatment; pioneered improvements in promoting maternal health and child survival. As public intellectuals, other awardees have shaped public policy and discourse towards environmental protection, promoting human rights, religious tolerance, the empowerment of women, and participative development.

Still others have worked tirelessly and against great odds to save lives at risk from social stigma, uncontrolled pandemics, protracted government neglect and unabated corruption, civil wars, pervasive ignorance, and the abuse of shared natural resources like water and forests and air. There are also Magsaysay awardees who, by the power of their pen and artistic works, have awakened the conscience of their societies to address urgent social ills.

In 2011, Tri Mumpuni, the Excecutive Director of IBEKA, was awarded the Magsaysay Award. This award was given to her for her determined and collaborative efforts to promote micro hydro power technology, to catalyse needed policy changes, and ensure full community participation, in bringing electricity and the fruits of development to the rural areas of Indonesia.

Take a minute to have a look at Tri Mumpuni’s speech for Magsaysay Award 2011, the transcript of her speech can be found here.

 Honorary Mention by President Obama
at the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship

The Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship, held in Washington, D.C. on April 27th, 2010, at the Ronald Reagan Building, follows through on President Obama’s commitment to identify how the USA can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations, and entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world. It represents an opportunity to highlight the importance of social and economic entrepreneurship, and strengthen mutually-beneficial relationships with entrepreneurs in Muslim-majority countries and Muslim communities around the world.

Participants have been selected from around the world to represent their home countries, regions, and sectors at the Summit.  They hail from over fifty countries on five continents and include successful entrepreneurs, investors, academics, and leaders of entrepreneurship networks, non-profit organizations, foundations, and businesses who are invested in promoting entrepreneurship.  (Submitted biographies attached.)

Tri mumpuni was selected as a representative from Indonesia as an Environmental Entrepreneur. By creating economic incentives and financing programs to unlock the power of hydro, she is helping rural Indonesia realize its best option for a reliable power supply. Aside from local ownership of the off-grid system, the sustainability of the system is very much influenced by market forces and many local micro-hydro power operations have trouble surviving competition with the state-owned electricity company, PLN. Mrs. Mumpuni has been able to connect the community-based off-grid system to PLN‘s grid, providing a crucial link that allows local communities to sell their power supply to the PLN and gain revenue from deals facilitated by Mrs. Mumpuni.

As President Obama said,”[…] real change comes from the bottom up, from the grassroots, starting with the dreams and passions of single individuals serving their communities […] social entrepreneurs like Tri Mumpuni, who has helped rural communities in Indonesia  harness the electricity, and revenues, of hydro-power […]”

The video of the full speech by President Obama can be seen here, while the transcript of the speech can be accessed here.

 The 2012 SCHWAB Foundation Award of Social Entrepreneur

In partnership with the World Economic Forum, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship is a leading global platform that accelerates outstanding models of social innovation. Working together, we help scale solutions to support millions of vulnerable and low-income people in need.

The People Centered Economic and Business Institute (IBEKA) partners with rural communities that have abundant water resources to construct micro-hydro plants that produce electricity. IBEKA emphasizes community management of all its micro-hydro plants, and works with communities to develop management plans, set tariffs and train local villagers in operation and maintenance procedures. Once these systems have been constructed, they are community owned and operated.

Although IBEKA utilize grant funding to construct some of its projects, it has also developed innovative funding mechanisms to maintain the micro-hydro systems. IBEKA lobbied the Indonesian government to set regulations that require the national electricity company to purchase excess electricity from grid-connected systems. Four of the IBEKA-constructed systems are now connected to the grid and capable of selling excess electricity, with the proceeds going to a community social development fund.

To date, IBEKA has installed 61 micro-hydro plants, 51 of which are off-grid and supply electricity to approximately 10,000 households. The four plants connected to the grid provide electricity to an additional 1,500 households. As an economic result, families that previously burned kerosene to produce light paid a cost of up to $6 per month, whereas the average monthly cost for electricity generated by micro-hydro plants is less than $1.

An additional benefit is that access to electricity allows communities to connect to the outside world with radios and cell phones. The grid-connected communities capable of selling excess electricity can apply this income to a community fund supporting a variety of benefits, like healthcare for pregnant women, road repairs, household water distribution systems, student scholarships and micro-loans. Hopefully it can be replicated for remote rural communities around the world.

The press release of SCHWAB Foundation can be found here.

 The 4th International Off-grid Renewable Energy Conference and Exhibition (IOREC 2018)

Organized by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), IOREC 2018 is the global platform for sharing experience and best practices on design and implementation of enabling policies, tailored financing schemes, innovative business models and technology applications for stand-alone and mini-grid systems.

The fourth edition of IOREC took place in Singapore, on 31 October - 1 November 2018, as a co-located event with the Asia Clean Energy Summit, during Singapore International Energy Week. With over half a billion people in Asia still without access to electricity, the synergy with the ASEAN Ministers on Energy Meeting, chaired by Singapore in 2018, and with the Asia Clean Energy Summit, highlighted the role decentralised renewable energy solutions can play in electrification strategies in the region and beyond, as well as the role of off-grid renewable energy in achieving several of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The panel focused on Accelerating Financially Viable Hydro Mini-Grids: A Closer Look at Small-Scale Hydropower in S/SE Asia, including case presentations from Nepal and Myanmar, and a multi-stakeholder panel discussion, with the most senior experts of the sector!

Panel of Experts, moderated by HPNET Board of Advisors member, Dr. Binu Parthan of Sustainable Energy Associates (SEA). Panelists included Mr. Bikash Pandey of Winrock International, Mr. Kapila Subasinghe of DFCC Bank Sri Lanka, Senator Adrian Banie Lasimbang of Malaysia, Ms. Tri Mumpuni of IBEKA, Ms. Rana Ghoneim of UNIDO, and Mr. Gerhard Fischer of the the ASEAN Hydropower Competence Centre -- each with decades of micro hydro experience!

Speaker bios can be found here.

  IDB 8th Edition ( 2013) Women’s Prize Laureates Announced

Jeddah,5th March 2013, Three enterprising women respectively from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Indonesia and a woman-led organization from Pakistan have been selected for the award of the IDB Prizes (8th Edition) for Women’s Contribution to Development for the year 1434H/2013, announced Dr Ahmad Mohamed Ali, Chairman, IDB Group. The selection process for the Prizes was overseen by a committee of expert women from different parts of the Muslim World.

The themes for this year’s Prizes were “Women’s Management of Natural Resources for Development” for the individual category and “Women’s Role in Environmental Leadership” for the organizational category.

According to the decision of the selection committee, the individual category Prize of US$ 50,000 of US cash award will be equally shared among the three winners. These are:
1. Mrs. Seidaliyeva Balikhiya Amzeevna (Kazakhstan) for her innovative solution to restore the vitality of chemically affected soils by creating an eco-fertilizer produced from mining waste.
2. Professor Mrs. Pervin Mammadova (Azerbaijan) for her invention in biotechnology to neutralize oil polluted soils; and
3. Mrs. Tri Mumpuni (Indonesia) for her innovative and practical application of renewable energy in the remote villages of Indonesia.

The organizational category Prize has been awarded to the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan in recognition of the organization’s use of earthquake proof and flood resistant eco-construction techniques in disaster prone areas in the remote regions of Pakistan. This unique technique has facilitated women’s active participation in the development of their communities.

The IDB Prizes for Women’s Contribution to Development were established in 1427H (2006G) to draw international attention to the vital role women play in developing their communities and the world. The Prizes will be awarded to the laureates by the Chairman of the IDB Board of Governors at a special ceremony to be held on the occasion of the 38th Annual Meeting of the IDB Board of Governors in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, during 21-22 May 2013.

 <> ASEAN Advisory Business Council (ASEAN-BAC)

 6th September 2017

Indonesia - SME.

Launched in April 2003, ASEAN-BAC was set up with the mandate to provide private sector feedback and guidance to boost ASEAN’s efforts towards economic integration. Aside from providing private sector feedback on the implementation of ASEAN economic cooperation, the Council also identifies priority areas for consideration of the ASEAN Leaders. Accordingly, ASEANBAC’s activities are primarily focused on reviewing and identifying issues to facilitate and promote economic cooperation and integration.

Social Entrepreneurs
The Indonesian government has yet to invest in social entrepreneurship as evident in the lack of a government agency that focuses on this area.(citation 137) However, NGOs and businesses, both local and international, have been active in supporting social entrepreneurs by creating dedicated educational programmes in the social impact sphere such as the relatively well-known Ashoka Indonesia, which has been operating in the country since 1983, and British Council, which launched the Skills for Social Entrepreneurs programmed in 2009.

Assessing the uptake of social entrepreneurship in Indonesia is currently difficult as there is no database dedicated to the community, nor is there any mapping exercise conducted on the topic. By assessing long-standing social entrepreneurship programmes such as Ashoka, it is found that there has been (citation 151) Ashoka Fellows since the organisation’s landing in Indonesia in 1983.(citation 141) One of Ashoka’s most well-known fellows is Tri Mumpuni who created IBEKA, an enterprise that partners with rural communities to build and operate micro-scale hydro power plants,(citation 142) and who was invited to the US Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship in Washington DC in late 2010 along with 8 other Indonesian social entrepreneurs.(citation 143) This evidently shows a growing interest in social entrepreneurship in the country.