CHECK OUT OUR 2023 ANNUAL REPORT

Highlights

Here’s a sneak peak to our 2023 Annual Report!

From our Board Chair

From our Executive Director

2023: Our Impact at a Glance

Here’s a glimpse of Student Energy’s 2023 impact in numbers:

• Global Reach: Our Programs Ecosystem (7 active programs) engaged a total of 826 participants from 116 countries, 78 of which are developing economies.
• Youth Empowerment: Supported 9 global youth delegations at prestigious events, and 407 youth delegates from 95 countries attended SES 2023, the largest youth-led energy summit.
• Global Community Engagement: Reached 32,730 people through our global Chapters network, with a membership of 4,369 students from different universities across the world.
• Mentorship, Early Career and Project Development: 32 graduates completed the first cohort of the Guided Projects program, received 1,604 Career Training and 1,063 Fellowship applications from youth interested in joining our capacity-building and mentorship-oriented programs.
• Networking: Spoke at 34 panels and events in the climate and energy space worldwide, including the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) UAE, Climate Week NYC, and Africa Energy Forum, among others.
• Recognition: Received 3 individual awards and one organizational accolade, “Best Nonprofit Employer: Youth Advancement for an organization with 20+ staff”, awarded by CharityVillage.

5 accomplishments we’re celebrating:

1. Successfully hosting SES 2023 in Abu Dhabi, bringing together 407 young people from around the world.

Making history as the first International Student Energy Summit held in the MENA region – a global hub for energy, SES 2023 featured 407 youth delegates from all over the world to meaningfully collaborate with sector and community leaders on energy solutions. We are proud to work with several partners for the first time, including Bezos Earth Fund, the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP), and coordinated with NYU Abu Dhabi and the COP 28 UAE team as the Summit took place as an official side event of the UN Climate Change Conference for the very first time.

2. Activating a first cohort of youth-led clean energy projects in solar PV through the Guided Projects program and expanding the program’s offerings and reach.

With 32 graduates from 6 teams representing Kenya, Canada, and Peru, the Guided Projects program provided teams with the firsthand experience of developing solar PV projects to solve local energy problems in their communities. After a successful first cohort, Student Energy focused on retooling and securing additional resources for the program’s continuation in February 2024.

3. Releasing and disseminating our first round of the three research projects with active stakeholder engagement throughout.

Under Student Energy’s newly launched Research and Youth Engagement program, we launched the Global Youth Energy Outlook (GYEO), the Youth Impact Framework, and the Energy Transition Skills Project.

VIEW THE REPORTS

4. Integrating mentorship as a core aspect of our Programs Ecosystem, offering our youth network platforms to build connections through mentorship offerings.

Mentorship is the foundation of the Student Energy Career Training (SECT) program, and regional and language-specific mentorship is necessary and achieved through individual recruitment from program coordinators who are globally dispersed.

5. Amplifying youth-led action on energy on global stages and decision-making spaces

Student Energy attended 23 global energy and climate events, including the New York Climate Week, Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue, and the Africa Energy Forum among others. We participated as speakers and moderators at 34 events, and hosted 11 events at COP 28 and the Student Energy Summit. We acted in an advisory capacity for several youth councils, and hosted the very first Youth Energy Narratives Council under the Research and Youth Engagement portfolio.

We’ve got so much more in store for you! Explore our 2023 Annual Report:

STUDENT ENERGY'S 2023 ANNUAL REPORT 

Thank you for standing by us as we empower the next generation of leaders in driving a just and equitable energy future! Your continued support fuels our mission and inspires us every step of the way.

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It was another rollercoaster of a year for the world, and we are grateful to have experienced it together as an organization and with our global youth community. Throughout the year, we are energized by the many young people who are striving to make an impact and keep climate action at the forefront. This past year, as we continued to grow our staff and Board of Directors teams internationally, we also aligned our various program offerings into one cohesive Programs Ecosystem that provides multiple pathways for young people to engage with Student Energy. Whether young people are considering a future in energy for the very first time, or whether they are ready to launch their own energy project, there is a Student Energy program that is designed to provide youth with the tangible skills, networks, and resources needed to reach the next level. We also put into motion our most ambitious initiative yet, the Student Energy Solutions Movement, which aims to deliver on our goal of empowering young people to take action by raising $150 million by 2030 to launch 10,000 youth-led clean energy projects.

Here are some of the things we accomplished in 2021:

• We launched the Student Energy Solutions Movement, as a youth-led UN Energy Compact, in partnership with the Government of Denmark as our first funder and New Energy Nexus as our project implementation partner. The announcement was made at the UN High Level Dialogue on Energy in June, and we held an in-person launch during New York Climate Week.
• We launched the initial findings from the Global Youth Energy Outlook at COP26, with several of our Regional Coordinators attending in person to present their work.
• Student Energy’s 40 global Chapters engaged 43, 579 people in 2021 through in-person and virtual community engagements.
• Our Energy System Map web and video views have continued to rise, reaching a total of 14 million+ lifetime views, with 2.5 million of those just in 2021.
• For COP 26 in Glasgow, we brought together our largest youth delegation yet, supporting 8 of our team members to attend and speak at over 10 events, and collaborated with many other Student Energy alumni in attendance.
• We continued expanding our core programs, including the second cohort of the Student Energy Fellowship (formerly known as the Leaders Fellowship), and the fourth annual cohort of the Greenpreneurs virtual startup incubator.
• The Intersectional Equity Taskforce completed their term, and put together a set of ambitious recommendations to be implemented in coming years.
• Led by SevenGen and powered by Student Energy and Indigenous Clean Energy, we supported the launch of the ImaGENation Indigenous Youth Mentorship Program in 2021, and continued the planning process for the second SevenGen Indigenous Youth Energy Summit, rescheduled to be held in 2022.
• Student Energy’s team grew from 25 staff members to 29 staff and 7 international Associates.
• We provided $133,000 in funding directly to young people to support them with honorariums and awards to help them take action on energy, and are gearing up to launch our direct-to-youth funding model, Student Energy Ventures, in 2022.

We adapted our plans and programs in a big way this year, and we couldn’t have done it without you – thank
you. Whether you learned about Student Energy for the first time this year, joined us as a partner or a program participant, or cheered us on through social media, your support allows us to continue making an impact. Here are some of the things we accomplished this year:

• We grew our network to 47 chapters in 22 countries, who engaged over 16,000 youth in 2020.
• We launched the first Leaders Fellowship cohort in January, and ended the year with 47 global teams completing their 10-month program. We’re set for an even bigger year in 2021, as we bring in 90+ teams for the second cohort in response to overwhelming demand for the program.
• The Global Youth Outlook survey is now available in eight languages, and we are working with a global youth team of Regional Coordinators to reach 50,000 young people in the lead-up to COP26.
• Our Energy System Map and video users skyrocketed this year, reaching a total of 10 Million+ users, with 2.5 million of those just in 2020, as more students and educators turned to digital energy learning resources. This year, we launched the  new Energy System Map at  www.studentenergy.org, featuring the new “Influences” layer, to help young people understand how to change the energy system.
• We provided $120,000 in funding directly to young people to support them with honorariums and awards to help them take  action on energy, and are working on an even more ambitious direct-to-youth funding strategy for 2021.
• To date Student Energy has now partnered with 90 organizations to make space for youth, we’ve developed new models for intergenerational collaboration that will continue to expand through 2021.
• Student Energy’s team grew from 9 to 25 staff members
• As a youth-led organization, we are excited to see that youth leadership for bold, just climate action is being recognized more often on the global stage. We are hopeful for this recognition to grow into more meaningful support and resources for youth-led climate and energy solutions in 2021. To make this happen, we think there’s a lot more that organizations, governments, and those in power need to do to fully empower and equip youth with the tools and resources they need to take action.

New to this annual report is a section titled “Reflecting on 2019: What we learned”. Student Energy runs on a youth empowerment model, which means that the priorities and needs of our 50,000-strong global youth network are central to the strategic direction of the organization. We want to make sure that we are listening to, and acting on young people’s feedback,  so we’ve synthesized the main priorities we’ve heard from our youth network (which include a focus on justice and equity in the energy transition, calls for transparency, a greater need for mentorship, and the importance of intergenerational collaboration), and discussed how we’re taking action on them.

We hope to continue to share these learnings and our process, to continually improve transparency and accountability with our youth network.

In this report, we also review our takeaways from 2019’s biggest projects: 

• Our growing Chapters program, now with 40 chapters who engaged 8,100 people through their 2019 projects
• Our 6th International Student Energy Summit in London, which brought together 650 students from 98 countries
• Hosting a Young Leaders Forum at the Clean Energy Ministerial and Mission Innovation Forum – a first for this high level ministerial event
• SevenGen, the first Indigenous Student Energy Summit
• Our role at the UN Climate Summit in New York as an official delivery partner of the UN Secretary General
• Running the second annual Greenpreneurs business pitch competition with Youth Climate Lab and the Global Green Growth Initiative, in which the 3 winning teams (all women-led!) received USD$5000 in seed funding to scale their initiatives
• Finally, we look forward to 2020, which is set to be an even bigger year – for Student Energy, and for world leaders to commit to truly bold and equitable climate action. We came away from 2019’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP25), disappointed by the lack of ambition shown by world leaders, but incredibly inspired by the leadership shown by young people and Indigenous communities from around the world. We’re bringing that spirit into our work in 2020.