Northcote residents’ East Timor solar lighting project makes final list for Google grant funding

A PROJECT aiming to give East Timor villagers solar-powered lighting is in the running for a $500,000 Google Australia Impact Challenge grant.

Locals inline for Google award for major solar project

A PROJECT driven by Northcote residents has been named as a finalist for a $500,000 grant, which would give thousands of villagers in East Timor solar-powered lighting.

Alternative Technology Association chief executive and Northcote resident Donna Luckman said the not-for-profit group could create a sustainable solar industry in East Timor if it won the inaugural Google Australia Impact Challenge grant.

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Mick Harris and Donna Luckman pictured with an example of the solar unit being installed in Timor.

“Thousands of people in remote areas of East Timor will never be connected to the electricity grid and are forced to use polluting and unhealthy kerosene lamps for lighting.” — Donna Luckman

With four winning entrants chosen from just 10 finalists, Ms Luckman was optimistic, particularly if the Darebin community got behind the association and voted for the Solar for Timor project online before the successful applicants were announced on October 14.

In July this year, Google, the search-engine giant, invited not-for-profit groups with projects that use technology to change lives and tackle social challenges to apply for the grants.

Ms Luckman said the association’s International Project Group director, Mick Harris, Northcote’s Enviroshop proprietor, was the driving force behind the Solar for Timor project, which aimed to install 2000 low-cost solar lighting systems and train 75 village-based installers in the next two years.

Ms Luckman said the association already had a strong track record of bringing light to some of the villagers, having installed solar lighting at more than 1000 homes, community centres, hospitals and orphanages in remote East Timorese villages during the past 10 years.

Ms Luckman said association volunteers had also trained more than 100 technicians at a training institute in East Timor’s capital Dili, providing jobs in a country suffering high rates of unemployment.

Google Australia managing director Maile Carnegie last week praised the finalists, saying they stood out for their innovative ideas that used technology to make a big impact.

Vote for the Solar for Timor project online.

Voting closes on October 13.