Tombo Banda

Energy access innovator

Tombo Banda works to improve energy access for the more than 500 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa who don’t have electricity.

Why you should listen

As managing director at CrossBoundary, Tombo Banda leads the firm’s Nairobi-based Mini-Grid Innovation Lab, a research and development fund that tests business models to drive commercial viability and investment into mini-grids, or small-scale electricity generation outside the main grid. She believes this is the most cost-effective technology for delivering renewable energy to rural communities, a necessity for achieving transformative economic development.

Banda has years of experience as a consultant, first at engineering consultancy Prime Engineering in Malawi and then at McKinsey & Company’s office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Tombo Banda’s TED talk

10:22

Tombo Banda

Meet mini-grids — the clean energy solution bringing power to millions

Posted Mar 2024

More news and ideas from Tombo Banda

Live from TED Countdown Summit 2023

Dilemmas: Notes from Session 3 of TED Countdown Summit 2023

July 12, 2023

Session 3 of TED Countdown Summit 2023 tackled some of the knottier issues related to climate change — from the massive amount of money needed to finance the global green transition, to the struggle for energy access in developing nations and the ecosystem effects of fast fashion — and offered glimpses of the world-changing solutions […]