By Mohamed M. Sesay
A 21 one year old student and green energy pioneer from Sierra Leone Jeremiah Thoronka, has put Sierra Leone on World Map by becoming the first-ever winner of the $ 100,000 Chegg.org Global student Prize 2021.
The inimitable Jeremiah Thoronka won the prize for inventing a device that uses kinetic energy from traffic and pedestrians to generate clean energy power. The award celebrates one exceptional student who has impacted the lives of his peers and society at large.
Jeremiah was selected from among 3,500 nominees and applications from 94 countries around the world.
Jeremiah made his way through among top 10 finalists for the Global Student Prize 2021. The top finalists who competed with the matchless Jeremiah Thoronka were Amisa Rashid from Kenya, Ana Julia Monteiro de Carvalho from Brazil, Kehkashan Basu from Canada, Lamya Butt from the UAE, Elliott Lancaster from the UK, Matine Khalighi from the US, Mirko Cazzato from Italy, Oluwadamilola Akintewe from Nigeria and Seema Kumari from India.
Showering praise on Thoronka’s accomplishment, President Julius Maada Bio took to his twitter page posting a video celebrating the intellectual prodigy for making the country proud.
“Congratulations Jeremiah Thoronka from Sierra Leone, for winning the 2021 Global Student Prize. Jeremiah’s example reminds us that there is a wealth of new ideas, brilliant minds and untapped potential in Sierra Leone and across Africa.”
The 21-year-old Jeremiah is currently studying a Master’s degree in sustainability at Durham University. Jeremiah Thoronka was born during the Sierra Leone civil war and grew up with his single mother in a slum camp for displaced people on the outskirts of the capital Freetown. Their means of livelihood was primarily charcoal burning and selling.
Jeremiah saw these harsh realities with his own eyes in addition to the photochemical smog making respiratory problems commonplace. His young contemporaries fell behind in their schoolwork because of a lack of decent lighting.
These life-threatening disadvantages and hardships fueled Jeremiah’s passion for renewable energy and climate change advocacy. At 17, when studying at the African Leadership University in Rwanda, he launched a start-up called Optima Energy that transforms vibrations from vehicles and pedestrian footfall on roads into an electric current. It is different from established renewable energy sources including wind or solar because it generates power without relying on changeable weather. At the same time, no battery and no electricity connection to an external power source is needed.
Optima Energy ran a successful pilot program in Jeremiah’s neighborhoods which is Makawo in the Northern part of Sierra Leone and Kuntoluh East of Freetown with just two devices. The start-up provided free electricity to 150 households comprising around 1,500 citizens, as well as 15 schools where more than 9,000 students attend.
Jeremiah is currently developing plans to expand into the healthcare sector, which needs power to chill medicines and vaccines and create sufficient light for treating patients in the dark.
It is a gospel truth that energy poverty is a major issue in Sierra Leonne with just about 26% of the population having access to electricity. In rural parts of the country, only about 6% of people have electricity access, with most turning to solar lanterns and dry-cell batteries.
Jeremiah Thoronka is also a United Nations Academic Impact Millennium Fellow in which Optima Energy was voted the most Innovative Energy Start-up 2020 by United Nations Major Group on Children and Youth (UNMGCY), and the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 Youth Constituency. Jeremiah is equally one of the World Wildlife Fund’s top 100 Young African Conservation Leaders. He has promised to use the one hundred thousand dollars prize money to expand Optim Energy to reach 100,000 people by 2030.
The Global Student Prize is a compendium award to Varkey Foundation which was launched earlier this year as a sister award to its $1 million Global Teacher Prize. The intent of the Varkey Foundation awards is to create a powerful new platform that shines a light on the efforts of extraordinary students everywhere.
The prize is open to all students who are at least 16 years old and enrolled in an academic institution or skills training program. The Prize also provides space for Part time students as well as students enrolled in online courses. This year also saw US teacher Keishia Thorpe named as the winner of the Global one million dollars Teacher Prize 2021.