In 1998, a 10-year-old Robert Kabera was trying to study a high school science textbook by the light of a kerosene lamp in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana. But the strong desert winds kept blowing it out as soon as he lit it."I didn't know much about electricity back then," he recalls."I just knew that after living with darkness for six years, I had become obsessed with light.
Kabera says that lampless night in the desert set the path of his career: turning the lights on for those who lack power, and keeping them on in the face of growing climate threats to the power grid, such as storms that bring down power lines and flood transformers."We need to use technology to protect and restore nature in order to bring resilience to the grid," he says."If we can do that well, we'll be able to manage the risks of climate change.