To design a sustainable, disaster-resilient energy solution for a community in need, the first problem was figuring out where to even begin and which community to choose.

Three of us were from Kolkata. So we started there. We chose Lake Town, which would be a site we could actually visit, and understand rather than design for from a distance. That decision, small as it seemed at the time, turned out to be the right one.

Our proposal covered everything from solar microgrids and floating panels to climate-responsive homes built with local materials.
We won the grand prize and $10,000.