Annual Stove Summit Educates, Engages, and Inspires
Last month, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves co-sponsored Stove Summit, a conference co-hosted by InStove and Stove Team International to share best practices around clean cookstoves, technology, food security, and livelihoods in international development.
The event was attended by more than 30 nonprofits and charitable foundations. Highlights included a hands-on workshops on how to build rocket-stoves from locally-available materials; presentations by three major stove sensor companies—Nexleaf Analytics, Berkeley Air Monitoring Group, and Sweet Sense; and a panel of funders—from small local foundations to those with endowments of over $1 billion—on how to secure support for cookstove research, development, fieldwork, and hiring of staff.
“It was an incredible event offering a great contribution to the work being done by so many in collaborating, networking, and learning together,” said one funder who participated in the funder’s panel. The Summit connected several projects with new funding sources—both grants and investment capital.
Leslie Cordes, Senior Director for Strategic Partnerships at the Alliance, gave the Keynote address, with a focus on how the Alliance’s successes are enabled through effective partnerships.
“Given the burden of disease and a solid understanding of past successes and challenges, the Global Alliance has attempted to harness the power of non-traditional partnerships,” said Cordes.
“I was already interested in cookstoves through my work,” said Stephanie Martinez, graduate student at Columbia University and intern at the Population Council in New York City. “But this week has really turned that interest into a genuine excitement!”
“When it comes to finding solutions to human health and environmental issues, it's important that we work together,” wrote Sebastian Africano, International Director for Trees, Water & People, a nonprofit that works primarily in Latin America and the Caribbean to solve integrated issues of conservation, food security, and renewable energy. “With clean cookstove heavy-weights like StoveTeam International, Institutional Stove Solutions (InStove), and BURN Design Lab, you know there will be lots of great collaboration and idea sharing.”
Stove Summit takes place each summer in Lane County, Oregon, at the InStove campus in Cottage Grove. For more information contact info@instove.org, subject line, “Stove Summit.”