Solar Energy Company Greenlight Planet To Present Expert Panel Discussion At SOCAP, The World's Leading Conference On Social Enterprise

NEW YORK, Sept. 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Greenlight Planet—a for-profit solar energy company with a social mission of serving off-grid families in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia—will be featured today as part of the SOCAP14 agenda at 12:15pm PST. The brand, which aims to replace inefficient, expensive fuel based sources of light with innovative clean technology solutions in as many as 20 million homes by 2016, was selected among hundreds of applicants to join the SOCAP OPEN platform and present a panel entitled "From One to One Billion: Last Mile Strategies For Scaling Access To Energy."

Greenlight Planet, a leading champion of clean energy, has sold over 2.5 million of its Sun King^TM line of solar lamps to date in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The company is on a mission to transform the lives of hundreds of millions of off-grid households. More than 10-15% of a rural consumer's monthly income is spent on kerosene to light their home – which collectively amounts to more than $2.5 billion globally. This habit has massive implications on health; according to the W.H.O., ingesting kerosene smoke has a similar impact on respiratory health as smoking 10 cigarettes per day.  Furthermore, the light emitted from kerosene lamps is insufficient for people's needs: students struggle to complete schoolwork with insufficient lighting and men and women are limited in their ability to run businesses and maintain households.

The ability to bring affordable, high-quality energy solutions to people residing in often hard-to-reach areas poses a massive challenge – how do smart technology companies navigate poor infrastructure and immense language diversity to effectively bring solutions to over a million villages in India and Africa alone? The panel discussion will involve guest speakers representing a variety of disciplines – from investors to MFIs, agro-cooperative to energy distribution focused social enterprise, to aligned technology partners – each presenting a variety of scalable strategies for delivering clean energy solutions to the 2 billion people living off the energy grid around the world.

Panel Participants
Niki Armacost, Managing Director of Arc Finance, Ltd. will moderate the panel discussion and participants include:

• Greenlight Planet: Radhika Thakkar, Vice President Global Business Development
• BioLite: Jonathan Cedar, CEO & Co-Founder
• Sunny Money: John Keane, Managing Director
• D-Prize: Nicholas Fusso, Program Director

Follow the panel live on Twitter using #SOCAP14, #SunKingStories and #Greenlightplanet.

About Greenlight Planet
Greenlight Planet's vision is to become a global leader in delivering clean, safe, affordable energy around the world.  Founded in 2009 by university classmates, the Greenlight Planet team is dedicated to replacing dirty fuel sources prevalent in geographies such as Africa and India with clean energy technology. Greenlight Planet has sold over 2.5 million solar lamps, has 9 offices globally, over 700 full-time employees and 6000 village Business Associates.  The company is a Certified B Corporation, which means it uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems, and has met rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. Today there are over 1045 certified B Corporations, across 60 industries and 34 countries, unified by one common goal: to redefine success in business.

About SOCAP
SOCAP (Social Capital Markets) is dedicated to increasing the flow of capital toward social good. Its unique approach emphasizes cross-sector convening and gathers voices across a broad spectrum to catalyze unexpected connections. From the leading edge to established players, SOCAP brings together global innovators, investors, foundations, governments, institutions, and social entrepreneurs to build the world it wants to leave to future generations. It actively seeks out opportunities to accelerate the market at the intersection of money and meaning and, in pursuit of that goal, have convened more than 10,000 people since its founding in 2008. 

Media Contact:
Valerie Donati, Brand Building Communications, 917-359-9169, [email protected]

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SOURCE Greenlight Planet