Achievement

While still working towards completion of their respective PhD programs, trainees Sarah Stefanos and Aleia McCord continued to develop W2E (Waste 2 Energy) Uganda, Ltd., the company that they established in Uganda to pursue sustainable waste management and energy production. This collaboration grew out of a project originally undertaken for a CHANGE Capstone course in 2010. In the last year, W2E Ltd. has won over $160,000 in development grants and should be ready to begin operations by this summer. W2E plans to launch a pilot-scale waste to energy system that will manage waste from local communities, generating electricity for the project site and high-quality fertilizer for local farmers. Stefanos and McCord brought their Ugandan partners to UW-Madison in August, 2012 for a series of presentations and meetings about how small-scale biogas technology could be used in Wisconsin. Technical and social aspects of this project will be at the core of McCord’s dissertation research.