The USAID-NREL Partnership's Colombia Young Leaders Workforce Training Program (Text Version)

This is the text version of the video The USAID-NREL Partnership's Colombia Young Leaders Workforce Training Program.

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>>Thomas Black: I've been lucky enough to be able to develop a series of capacity building programs. This one is very special because we were able to design a program to invite young leaders from the different parts of the energy sector in Colombia public, private to begin to prepare them at a very high level in a 9-month capacity building program with the objective of opening up the future of renewable energy for these leaders in a critical moment for Colombia.

>>Daniella Rough: The beauty of this project is not just NREL and the government of Colombia. It's NREL, NUSCA, USAID, obviously as the main implementing partner, Tetra Tech in the scaling-up renewable energy program, representatives of the government of Colombia, representatives of the regulators of Colombia, private sector representatives. We're all in this together. We all have different perspectives on how to approach this energy transition. We all have different roles in that, and we have to work together.

>>Johanna Koolemans-Beynen: There is so much to gain—to be gained from working together and exchanging experiences and exchanging best practices.

>>Jjairo Guiterrez: I think that the role that each of our institutions have played in these programs has been incredibly collaborative, and I think that the institutions that are receiving that support really feel that this is a united front.

>>Thomas Black: So, this program is really special because we ask the leading public and private entities that USAID associates with and works within Colombia to nominate two or three young leaders from each entity to participate in this program. And it's just been a fantastic experience.

>>Sean Esterly: So, four action plans were selected to receive additional technical assistance. We're providing a lot of technical assistance on electric vehicle advancement. And we also did a project modeling potential rooftop PV deployment out to 2050 for Barranquilla in Colombia using NREL's dGen model. We are able to see these action plans move forward in the real world as we're working on them. Some of the action plans are already moving on with next steps.

>>Catherine Bohorquez Rodrizuez: [ENGLISH TRANSLATION] So I think it was a very good experience. It was an experience in which we had the opportunity to learn from many countries, from many experts, and that made it enriching and, in the end, the product was very good in terms of not only achieving a good resul, but also allowing us to have the possibility that it is applied and that really contributes to the country.

>>Daniella Rough: So, during this capacity-building program that we developed, we tried to have at least 70% of female participation, which we achieved, and it was great.

>>Diana Orrego: [ENGLISH TRANSLATION] I think it is very important that the role that one as a woman can begin to coordinate, to lead everything that is the transition, not only at a large-scale level in generation or in engineering issues but also in all issues of coordination with public policy entities, regulators, city entities, and companies in order to generate synergies among all of them, and the role of women is very important for that.

>>Daniella Rough: Energy transitions are complex. It involves all actors, all stakeholders. It really involves everybody. It's an all-hands-on-deck approach.

>>Katharina Grosso Buitrago: [ENGLISH TRANSLATION] What excites me and my colleagues the most is being able to see all the research that NREL is undertaking, and all the great advances that are possible in Colombia, which until now we are in the middle of our energy transition. There are things that are far away for us, but being able to better understand them and see how we can articulate them in public policies and in the programs that we work on every day is what excites me the most about the course.

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