Cultivating skills and talent for clean energy opportunities

As part of Cisco’s “Plan for Possible,” our environmental sustainability strategy, I often emphasize the importance of resilient ecosystems. An essential aspect of resilient ecosystems is ensuring communities have the skills, tools, and resources to support the development and deployment of clean energy. Energy resilience is not solely about infrastructure; it’s fundamentally about people. Communities can benefit from clean energy solutions, such as microgrids and solar storage, but a skilled workforce and innovative technologies are needed to sustain these initiatives.

Many sectors, including manufacturing, technology, and construction, need talent that can help improve efficiency, reduce usage of raw materials, minimize waste, and help protect the environment. In fact, a 2024 report from LinkedIn indicates that such skills “are likely to become increasingly important as the industry confronts the complexities of overhauling the power grid.”

By investing in training, technology, and partnerships, we can help to build in resilience from the ground up and help people to take control of their energy future.

Recently, we held a discussion on this topic with three nonprofits funded through the Cisco Foundation, and here’s what they had to share:

GRID Alternatives

Founded in 2001, GRID Alternatives is the largest nonprofit installer of clean energy technologies in the United States for low-income households and communities. GRID has trained over 33,000 individuals in solar installation through its workforce development programs and gives job seekers the experience and networking opportunities they need, while helping local solar companies fill their ranks.

Erica Mackie, P.E., Co-Founder and CEO of GRID Alternatives, shared, “When we first started, we weren’t thinking about workforce development because the industry was nascent. People would come to us and say, ‘I need to volunteer with GRID Alternatives because I applied for a job, and the employer told me I don’t have any experience.’ Our workforce development programs respond to community members asking us to provide training and saying, ‘We are trying to get jobs and need the experience to get those jobs.’ We now provide training modules in a lab that also includes hands-on experience at an actual installation. We’ll also do wrap-around services like how to write a resume or how to interview. We now have a graduation ceremony where employers will come, and we’ll have stations set up for each of our trainees to demonstrate their craft and what they learned in the installation basics training.”

Kara Solar

Kara Solar began in 2012 as a dream to build a solar-powered boat. They now support a thriving network of solar transport and energy hubs in Achuar territory in the Ecuadorian Amazon and are beginning to replicate the model with more communities across the Amazon region. By optimizing designs, providing technical training, building local supply chains, and facilitating financing, Kara Solar enables Indigenous communities to access, implement, and manage solar transportation and energy systems in their own territories, on their own terms. Crucial to the model is in-depth local capacity building. Kara Solar has trained Indigenous technicians to install and maintain community microgrids that save gasoline, reduce carbon emissions, and support Indigenous communities in building local economic power and preserving rainforest ecosystems.

Oliver Utne, founder of Kara Solar shared, “We often say that the Amazon is a cemetery of failed projects. Because businesses will come in, install solar or some other kind of technological solution, tell the local people don’t touch this, and then they leave. The DNA of our organization from the very beginning was about co-design; it was about how do we get the right heads together that have not been together in the past? Our training method is all about learning by doing hands-on, and  increasingly peer-to-peer-training because now there is this really solid core of Indigenous technicians who are training other people.”

Solar Sister

Founded in 2010, Solar Sister is the world’s first scalable, women-led renewable energy distribution model, addressing energy and climate challenges by providing essential services and training to women to build businesses in their own communities. Currently active in Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania, their goal is to support women entrepreneurs in expanding clean energy distribution in last-mile communities. They provide Solar Sister Entrepreneurs (SSE) with business coaching, mentorship, a tested product pipeline, and access to their local Solar Sister Sisterhood groups for networking, support, and encouragement. There have been over 11,000 SSEs since their founding.

Olasimbo Sojinrin, CEO of Solar Sister shared, “Our model has been rooted on the adult learning principles, where 70% of learning comes from hands-on experience, 20% comes from peer-to-peer learning and 10% learning from classroom instruction. We have invested in curriculum development which we deliver in those classroom settings once every month, and the curriculum covers essential topics for starting and running a clean energy business. The training is done in a “sisterhood” group which provides the platform for women to share experiences and learn from each other. As individual business owners, they share experiences, discuss challenges and solutions, and support each other. By combining hands-on experience from their daily business activities, sisterhood group peer-to-peer learning, and monthly trainings; we empower women to thrive and build a sustainable clean energy business.”

Cisco’s value chain benefits from resilient ecosystems, both financially and ecologically. It is in our shared interest to support innovation by investing in clean technologies and helping to create sustainability-related jobs by building skilled workforces. That is why we are so proud of the work our Cisco Foundation grantees are doing to Power a More Inclusive Future for All.

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