Youth lead

There is interest and understanding among the youth about the acute crisis we are heading into in the field of energy. For instance, one of the finalists in Intel’s science talent search has figured out a way through his mathematical model to increase efficiency of cellulosic ethanol four times and reduce the price.

Cellulosic ethanol is made from the non-edible parts of corn, such as the stalk and leaves, or from non-corn sources such as certain kinds of grasses. The problem has been in making enough quantities of it as well as to make it economical.

“Right now it’s just big diseconomies of scale,” says Aditya Rajagopalan, 17, a student at Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut. Rajagopalan – one of 40 finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search in Washington DC this week for the final judging rounds – hopes to change that.

By combining various enzymes in different quantities, his formulas show a way to reduce the use of high priced enzymes by 50 percent, while at the same time nearly doubling how much sugar is produced.

A good sign. But is enough being done to sustain interest of youth in crucial areas? Perhaps not.

Which is why the MacArthur Foundation recently committed $15 million to jump-start a two-year master’s in development practice (MDP) program at a dozen institutions across the globe. A generation of leaders to think in new bold and sustainable ways is what the aim of the programme is.

Columbia University will be the first to offer the degree, starting in the fall of 2009, and schools in various countries, including Ghana, Nigeria and China, may follow suit in the next few years.

The MDP movement plans to create an international classroom that cuts across disciplines—including public health, social science, physical science and management—as well as issues such as poverty, hunger, disease control and climate change. The program will link affiliated universities worldwide through real-time online lectures and discussion panels, plus six months of field training in developing countries.