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In November 2020, I attended the Lunch of Youth Sustainable Energy Hub( YSEH), organized by the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth (UN MGCY) and SDG7 youth constituency. A month later I participated in the 2nd edition of Nigeria Tech Summit, organized by United States Embassy. 2 key points that resonated from these events were sustainable clean energy transition as well as entrepreneurship.
There is currently an ongoing energy transition on a global scale. Nigeria is not left out. In fact in Europe, one of their major targets is to phase out fossil fuel driven cars and replace them with electric vehicles by 2030. And they are seriously working towards that.
2 keynote speakers, Damilola Ogunbiyi, SRSG of the UN/CEO SEforAll and Martin Keller, Director, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Colorado, amongst other speakers were present in the November 11 lunch.
Some facts and stats given by these speakers are worth considering:

• Sub-saharan Africa contribution to world carbon footprint/emission is 1% – an indication of how poorly industrialized the region is.
• Africa contributes about 2% of global emissions.
• About 789 million people are without access to energy right now.
• The global energy demand of renewable energy has increased, hence there are vigorous researches going on to meet this challenge.
• Wind is the cheapest way of producing electricity.
• The sun delivers more energy in one hour than humanity needs in one year! – shows how underutilized the solar power is.
• In the future, Machine learning, Data science and decentralization and Artificial intelligence will be Integrated as driving forces in the energy industry.
  *Currently, according to the Director of NREL, researches are ongoing in the following areas:
• Integrated energy pathways,
• Electron-to-molecules ( custom-made hydrocarbons i.e. producing fuel needed by planes, ships etc from artificial means i.e. from electricity)
• Recycled economy.
• Clean energy transition comes from renewable energy sources.
• Young people need to be part of policy making team as well as be involved in government at different levels.
  The outcomes of these events underscore the fact that the future of the world in terms of clean energy transition and entrepreneural innovations rely majorly on the youths of our time, and believe me, youths are doing tremendous things around the world.
  Finally, in the backdrop of all the above and current realities, we (SIEL) have decided to channel a good fraction of our attention to innovative solutions in renewable energy. We shall be rolling out various innovative solutions, products and services in the coming days (weeks). We hope you will take advantage of these solutions and together we take our country and continent steps ahead in achieving sustainable development goals. Cheers!