About the Bride

Growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, I always had an innate desire to witness improvement in the state of infrastructure in my home country. My parents always thought I'd become a doctor, but at the very last minute I chose to follow another, very different path -- Architecture. In my second year at University, I stumbled upon an international Architecture journal (I forget the name now). It was a chance happening that was to change the course of my thinking forever. The content of that journal opened my eyes to a world of possibilities that was much larger than the world I was living in at the time. It was at that point that I determined to get as much knowledge as I could to change my world.

Upon completion of my bachelor's degree programme at Great Ife (where else?), I spent two years trying at jobs here and there, in architecture and construction. At one point, I even worked in a bank (now, what was I thinking?!). All the promise of money and car loans was not enough to keep me in any of the jobs, and in the autumn of 2004 I finally resigned from my bank job (thank God!) to resume at the University of Nottingham, UK for a postgraduate course in Architecture. My wider reading while on the course exposed me to the possibilities presented by sustainable energy development to the nation of Nigeria and the continent of Africa as a whole, so much so that I proceeded to explore the subject in my dissertation. In the course of my research, the enormous potential for growth aided by renewable energy technologies in Africa, especially in the hitherto neglected rural areas, became very apparent to me. Encouraged by my findings, I decided to carry out further research into the subject at PhD level.

I am now in the second year of my doctoral research programme, looking into the reasons for non-diffusion of renewable energy technologies in rural areas of African countries. Through comparative analysis of the implementation of a particular type of renewable energy technology -- improved stoves -- in Nigeria and Kenya, my PhD research will create insights into the key aspects of user participation, cultural identity and local-global interactions within the national and legal contexts of both countries. My work gives me a platform to speak at energy and development conferences in several countries around the world, particularly in Africa and Asia. It is expected that the findings of the research will impact upon energy policy and implementation in both continents. My much anticipated research blog, developingenergy.org, is in the final stages of construction and will go live in Q1 2009.

Looking back on my journey over the past seven to eight years, I can safely conclude that I have come full circle. Having fulfilled my aspiration to understand and conquer the world, I realize now that my heart is in Africa, in Nigeria, the land of my birth. All that I do now is done towards contributing my quota to the development of this great country.

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