Day 1: EnPe seminar in Trondheim

Uncategorized

Around 60 participants are in Trondheim to share their research findings and academic results for the EnPe seminar, 26 to 28 February 2019.

On day 1, five of the EnPe projects gave an introduction and presented their selected research. In addition, the EnPe secretariat and the Assistant Director of the Knowledge Bank, Norad, held introductions. A special lecture on ethics and concerns regarding renewable and non-renewable energies was given by Norwegian philosopher, author and lecturer Henrik Syse.

Introductions

PowerPoint presentation by EnPe coordinator Elisabeth Strand VigtelDownload
  • Solbjørg Sjøveian, Assistant Director of the Knowledge Bank, Norad

Ethics and other concerns regarding renewable energies and non-renewable energies, by Henrik Syse

PowerPoint presentation, Henrik SyseDownload
Henrik Syse on values, ethics and responsibilities

ANTHEI

Capacity building to enhance teaching/learning, research and expert services in petroleum science and engineering in Tanzania, with UDSM and NTNU.

PowerPoint presentation ANTHEI: An overview
Download
  • Ambrose Itika, Project coordinator UDSM
  • Oras Joseph Mkinga, PhD student

OGaT

Oil and gas technologies, with UDSM Tanzania and NTNU.

  • Joseph Kihedu, Project coordinator UDSM
  • Ole Jørgen Nydal, Project coordinator NTNU
  • Cuthbert Kimambo, Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research UDSM
  • Adela Sykilili, PhD student

Implementation of Master´s in Reservoir Engineering

Exploration, evaluation and environment, with UMSA and UiS.

Presentation (pdf): Overview Download
Presentation (pdf): Stochastic facies modeling applied to a geologic 3D gridDownload
Presentation (pdf): MSc-UMSA academic research outcomesDownload
  • Marco Montesinos, Project coordinator UMSA
  • Salvador Limachi, MSc student

JuMakBE

Petroleum geoscience collaboration, with Juba and UiB.

PowerPoint presentation: Overview JuMakBeDownload
Presentation (EnPe): Quantitative reservoir characterization using rock physics, seismic and geological constraints – examples from Semliki basin in Albertine GrabenDownload
  • Betty Nagudi, Project coordinator
  • Joan Nakajigo, PhD student

PETROL-UEM

Capacity building within petroleum engineering and research, with UEM and NTNU.

PowerPoint presentation Petrol-UEM Download
  • Pål Skalle, Project coordinator NTNU
  • Oscar Nhabanga, PhD student

All photos by EnPe / Bjørn Magnus Vian

Day 2: EnPe seminar in Trondheim

Uncategorized

Around 60 participants are in Trondheim to share their research findings and academic results for the EnPe seminar, 26 to 28 February 2019. 

On day 2, five of the EnPe projects gave an introduction and presented their selected research.

BioEnergy Ethiopia

Research and capacity building in clean and renewable bioenergy in Ethiopia, with Mekelle, Hawassa and NMBU.

PowerPoint presentation: Project overview BioEnergy EthiopiaDownload
PowerPoint presentation: Techno-economic feasibility of producing biodiesel from acidic oil using sulfuric acid and calcium oxide as catalysts Download
  • Meseret Tesema Terfa, Assistant Professor Hawassa
  • Shitaye D. Gebrewold, PhD student

  • Shimelis N. Gebremariam, PhD student

  • Getachew Sime, Post Doc

UPERC-RETs

Upgrading education and research capacity in renewable energy technologies, with KNUST Ghana, NMBU and NTNU.

PowerPoint presentation: Project overview UPERC-RETsDownload
Presentation (pdf): Modelling solar photovoltaic cell interconnections for improved reliability in Sub-Saharan AfricaDownload

  • Lena Mensah, Project coordinator KNUST
  • Frank Nyarko, PhD student

Capacity 5

Capacity building in renewable energy education and research in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and Mozambique, with Mekelle, Dar es Salaam, Makerere Eduardo Mondlande and NTNU.

  • Boaventura Cuamba, Project coordinator UEM
  • Ole Jørgen Nydal, Project coordinator NTNU
  • Karidewa Nyeinga, Project coordinator Makerere
  • Joseph Kihedu, Project coordinator UDSM
  • Tomas Nhabetse, PhD student
  • Mesele Hayelom Hailu, PhD student
  • Mulu Bayray, Project coordinator Mekelle

PELIBIGO

Capacity building to promote sustainable governance of petroleum resources, biodiversity and livelihoods in East African communities, with Makerere, Dodoma and NTNU.

Presentation (pdf): Project overview PELIBIGODownload
Presentation (pdf): Diversity of small mammals along a gradient of distance from major infrastructure in Mikumi National Park, Tanzania Download
  • Carol Kisanga, PhD student
  • Frank Mugagga, Project coordinator Makerere

MSESSD

MSc program and research project energy for sustainable social development, Nepal, with Tribhuvan and NTNU.

PowerPoint presentation: MSESSDDownload
  • Bijay Singh, PhD student
  • Martina Keitsch, Project coordinator NTNU

All photos by EnPe Bjørn Magnus Vian

Day 3: EnPe seminar in Trondheim

Uncategorized

Around 60 participants are in Trondheim to share their research findings and academic results for the EnPe seminar, 26 to 28 February 2019. 

On day 3, three projects gave in-depth presentation on selected topics.

MSESSD ACAP* collaboration

*The Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP)

The environment and human rights/inclusion aspects in Nepal by Martina Keitsch, Professor at the NTNU Department of Design.

PowerPoint Presentation on MSESSD ACAP collaborationDownload
Martina Keitsch on the environment and human rights/inclusion aspects in Nepal

Bioenergy as an alternative energy source

The implications of using bioenergy as an alternative energy source for sustainable environment in Ethiopia by Meseret Tesema Terfa, Assistant Professor at the School of Plant and Horticultural Science, Hawassa University.

PowerPoint presentation on bioenergy and sustainabilityDownload
Meseret Tesema Terfa on using bioenergy as an alternative energy source

Environmental sustainability: A human rights issue?

Environmental sustainability: A human rights issue in the Alerbertine region in Uganda? Presentation by Patrick Byakagaba, Post Doc from Makerere University.

PowerPoint Presentation on environmental sustainability and human rightsDownload
Patrick Byakagaba on environmental sustainability as a human rights issue

Graduation in La Paz, Bolivia

Uncategorized

The Graduation of Master students within Reservoir Engineering: Exploration, Evaluation and Environment

La Paz, Bolivia. 14.02.18

The 32 graduates
32 proud graduates!

UMSA Rector gives speech
The rector at UMSA Dr. Waldo Albarracín Sánchez giving his speech to the graduates.

The EnPe secretariat visited Boliva and Universidad Major de San Andrés (UMSA) for the graduation of 32 students from the EnPe-supported master programme in Reservoir Engineering: Exploration, Evaluation and Environment.

The rector of UMSA Dr. Waldo Albarracín Sánchez held a speech to the students where he emphasized the importance of this education for Bolivia as a country. “As Master students with a degree in reservoir engineering you have an important role as protagonists in the development of your country. With this degree of specialization you will cater to one of Bolivia’s biggest needs within the energy sector.”

Salvador Yamil Limachi Limachi

Salvador is a graduate student within reservoir engineering and has a bachelor in petroleum engineering. Salvador and two other students from UMSA participated in a competition hosted by European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE) and made it all the way to the finals! They competed against among others The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Due to visa issues the team had to withdraw and could unfortunately not make it to the finals in Denmark.

Salavdor would very much like to do a PhD, but at the moment he has to focus on supporting his family. Nevertheless, he is very appreciative of the support he has received from the reservoir engineering programme and his options have surely increased with his new master’s degree.

Shirley Lopez

Shirley is a graduate student with a bachelor in geology. In Bolivia a bachelor degree takes five years and now with a master’s degree in reservoir engineering, she has seven years of higher education. She hopes to get a job as a teacher and a researcher in the Reservoir Engineering programme at UMSA, putting to use her skills and knowledge to educate a new generation of reservoir engineers in Boliva.

Text and photos by Elisabeth Strand Vigtel 

Influencing high school girls to pursue science in Mozambique

Uncategorized,

Photo of Ms Basse Vaz
UEM student Ms Basse Vaz wants to inspire girls to pursue science

In a small classroom in a suburb of Maputo, a group of 15-year-old girls in identical school uniforms are listening to a passionate young engineer explain why they should pursue sciences and mathematics. The speaker, not many years older than they are, is wearing a dress and pink heels, paired with flawless makeup and painted nails. This is no coincidence. Not only does Ms Basse Vaz like to dress up, she also wants to make the point that there is room for femininity in science – a field largely thought of as man’s domain in Mozambique.

Ms Vaz, who has a degree in Environmental Engineering, admits she was not looking forward to the dress code she thought she would have to adopt as soon as she finished her undergraduate degree.

“As many women, I like to dress well and look beautiful. However, in Mozambique it is a common belief that sciences and engineering are masculine fields, and that women who enter these fields have to supress their femininity,” said Ms Vaz.

“I want to show the girls that it doesn’t have to be this way. And the fear of wearing clunky safety shoes should not be the reason they don’t consider science”.

Ms Vaz is wearing pink heels to show that choosing science does not mean you have to dress only in safety shoes
“The fear of wearing clunky safety shoes should not be the reason they (the girls) don’t consider science”.

Ms Vaz is currently working in a management position at an environmental consulting company, while doing a Master in Petroleum Engineering at Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM). Her MSc is one of two degrees at UEM that receives financial and academic support from the EnPe programme. As a condition under EnPe, gender equality must be incorporated into all project activities. In most cases, this means increasing the number of women.

“All EnPe projects have to incorporate gender. A large part of my role is simply to create awareness of what they can do,” said Elisabeth Strand Vigtel, the national EnPe-coordinator in Norway.

“For example, finding female lecturers, selecting academic content written by female authors and actively recruiting female students. The EnPe programme can also provide funding for activities such as school visits.”

At UEM, they would like to increase their number of female students to achieve a more balanced student body. However, when the time comes to choose university studies, many female applicants do not have the right academic foundation. This is the reason the university has started to send female students like Ms Vaz to secondary schools.

“To get more qualified female applicants for our bachelor programmes in engineering and sciences, we need to reach the girls before they choose their subjects in school,” said the Director of UEM’s Center of Coordination of Gender Matters, Ms Gracinda André Mataveia.

Professor Manuel Luis Chenene, who is teaching two courses in the MSc programme, agrees. “In the class I am currently teaching, I only have one female student. The others have left the programme. This is not as dramatic as it sounds, because there were few women to begin with.”

“To grow the number of female students, we need more female applicants with the right academic background.”

Ms Mataveia, and her colleague, Ms Beatriz Manuel Chongo, explain that girls and women in Mozambique are underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). While the reasons are many and multifaceted, they believe that a part of the problem is that girls do not receive encouragement.

“The culture is very strong, especially in rural communities. Many believe STEM-courses are only for boys, so the girls do not get any encouragement to pursue this from their surroundings,” said Chongo.

“More serious barriers include gender-based violence in schools and sexual harassment. At the university, we are working hard to create awareness and combat such issues on our own campus. We want UEM to be a good place for women to study.”

A new generation of female academics

The master’s programme in Petroleum Engineering has no female lecturers. There has not been anyone qualified to choose from. However, there is currently one EnPe-funded women doing her PhD at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Norway. At the completion of her PhD she will return to Maputo and work at UEM.

She will be a part of a new generation of female academics within petroleum engineering in Mozambique. And hopefully, in a few years, her classroom will also consist of female students that were once influenced to pursue science by an engineer in pink heels

By Hege Gabrielsen Førsvoll