Learn About
11:00 - 11:05 Welcome Remarks by Tyler Hacking
11:05 - 11:35 Sub-Saharan Energy Market Updates by Tshego Neeuwfen and Boris Adokou
11:35 – 11:45 Enlit Africa 2024 Program by Megan Taylor and Claire Volkwyn
11:45 - 11:50 Enlit Africa 2023 Success Story by Shingai Samudzi
11:50 – 11:55 Next Steps by Elizabeth Krauth
11:55 – 12:00 Q & A
Tshegofatso Neeuwfan is the Deputy Chief of Party-Technical, coordinating and overseeing technical implementation for the USAID-funded Southern Africa Energy Program (SAEP), a Power Africa initiative. SAEP works to advance energy policy and regulatory reform and accelerate investment to increase power generation and access to electricity throughout the region. He joined the program in April 2018 and worked on activities of increasing complexity while playing the roles of a Renewable Energy Systems Engineer, the Deputy Lead for Outcome 4: Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, and then took over as DCOP-T in September 2021. Mr. Neeuwfan has over 12 years of professional experience in the Southern African electricity supply industry (ESI). He spent over six years with the South African electricity utility company Eskom. During that time, he was involved in the energy sector's regulatory, strategic, business, and system design aspects. Following his employment at Eskom, he served as a lead engineer for a start-up energy company called Africa Energy Solutions. He later worked as a manager for Accenture South Africa before joining SAEP. Mr. Neeuwfan graduated from the University of Pretoria with an honors degree in Electrical Engineering and is a recipient of the 2016 Mandela Washington Fellowship.
is a Principal at CrossBoundary, which is serving as an implementing partner of Prosper Africa and Power Africa’s CTEN program. He leads advisory engagements across multiple sectors with a focus on increasing supply and access to affordable and reliable power across Africa.
Before CrossBoundary, Boris worked in Advisory where he provided commercial due diligence on M&A transactions and support on financing and strategy for clients across multiple geographies. He started his career as a field engineer for the leading Oilfield Services provider, Schlumberger, managing field operations in the North Sea.
Elizabeth Krauth is the Director of the North Bay/North Coast U.S. Export Assistance Center, in San Rafael, California. The Export Assistance Centers are part of the U.S. Commercial Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce. She has assisted numerous cleantech, telecommunications, food and beverage and medical products companies enter international markets. During her tenure with the U.S. Commercial Service, Elizabeth traveled to twenty countries to facilitate international business for U.S. companies. In two of those countries, Bulgaria and Malaysia, she served in short-term assignments as a Commercial diplomat. Elizabeth graduated from Birmingham-Southern College with a degree in political science and earned a Master’s degree from the University of San Francisco in Asian Studies. She also earned a Professional Certificate in Cultural Heritage Tourism from George Washington University. Elizabeth grew up in Korea where her parents were educational missionaries.
Megan Taylor is the Interagency Advisor at Power Africa, the U.S. Presidential Initiative that has supported $61 billion in power generation and brought first-time electricity to 145 million people across sub-Saharan Africa since 2013. Power Africa-supported projects are generating more than 6,000 MW of new, cleaner, and more reliable electricity, helping to mitigate climate change and energy poverty.
Mrs. Taylor leads Power Africa's Interagency Agency Team to develop a unified strategy and coordinated activities between Power Africa and its twelve U.S. government agency partners. Megan oversees the activities of several of these partner agencies who implement assistance on behalf of Power Africa, ensuring that each agency and department is effectively bringing to bear a wide range of tools and resources to support the power sector across sub-Saharan Africa. Since joining Power Africa in 2015, Mrs. Taylor has worked across the US government and its embassies in sub-Saharan Africa to engage with the private sector, host-governments, entrepreneurs, and other donors to scale-up investment in clean energy and innovative energy solutions. She assists private sector companies in accessing the resources and tools that will enable them to expand and invest in sub-Saharan Africa. Further, Megan has played a leading role in the initiative’s South Africa activities, focusing now on implementation of the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP).
Tyler Hacking is a Foreign Commercial Service Officer for the United States Department of Commerce and part of the U.S. Foreign Service Diplomatic Corps. The role of the U.S. & Foreign Commercial Service is to support U.S. commercial interests internationally. This mission includes support for US companies with advocacy and commercial diplomacy, strategic planning and counseling, market intelligence, and partner search services.
Tyler arrived in Cape Town in July of 2021 where he serves as the Principal Commercial Officer at the U.S. Consulate in Cape Town, South Africa. Previous assignments include serving as the Senior Commercial Officer in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, the Deputy Senior Commercial Officer in Nairobi, Kenya, Commercial Officer in Seoul, South Korea and at the U.S. Export Assistance Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.