For the AAPG Foundation, call it a matter of one good deed deserving another.
That good deed was the Foundation’s decision to help sponsor the AAPG Sustainable Development in Energy Competition, a global contest in which students and young professionals conceive and then create energy projects that promote sustainable development within social, environmental and economic impacts.
The ”another” good deed? It’s happening again, and it’s happening right now – an encore opportunity for the Foundation to have a global impact through its support of practical, tangible uses of geosciences.
Proposals for this year’s SDEC, which focus on using energy and geosciences to help improve life around the world, will be accepted through April 30.
Those proposals will be judged by members of the SDEC Committee, who view the proposals through an entire prism of dynamics, with winners announced in June.
Contest winners will receive up to $5,000 to fund and develop their proposed project. And that’s where the AAPG Foundation comes into play – its support for the competition helps make it possible.
The result of the contest? For the participating teams, young geoscientists get:
- Real-world experience in conceiving and developing a practical and impactful energy project
- The opportunity to gain experience and knowledge needed in the era of sustainable development
- The chance to showcase themselves, the profession and the industry as vital and relevant for the future of energy development.
For the Foundation and its supporters? The satisfaction of supporting efforts to improve life on the planet through the use of energy, and the gratification of helping to give young geoscientists a meaningful start to their careers.
Past SDEC-winning projects have involved ways to help provide clean water, protect native wildlife and provide economic opportunities in underserved areas – all while simultaneously providing energy.
For the AAPG Foundation, it’s an opportunity to be part of today’s preparations and tomorrow’s successes.
“The geosciences have been broadening the reach in the energy and related environmental space for a few years now, so this program allows us to reach a different audience than some of our other efforts,” said Foundation Chair Jim McGhay. “It gives us an opportunity to assist some young geoscientists in doing good things for their communities – some of which really need the help.”
Support for the program has been greatly appreciated by those who organize and oversee the competition.
“The AAPG Foundation has been instrumental in the program’s success,” said Elvira Gomez, one of the Committee’s co-chairs and a former AAPG vice president-regions. “When initially pitched to them, I was thrilled to see their understanding of the contest’s importance.”
Other sponsors have included BP, Chevron, Aramco and SLB.
And about the contest’s importance: In many examples, the projects’ humanitarian intents, both in theory and in practical impact, have direct impacts on areas around the world – all as an added benefit to developing and promoting sustainable energy development.
“And this program should show potential for repeatability, too,” McGhay said, “so what begins with an idea and a bit of the Foundation’s ‘seed’ money can have great and ongoing impact in more peoples’ lives.
“And that is the goal,” he added, “improving people’s lives through the geosciences.”
A Global Reach
AAPG’s SDEC, as reported in the November 2023 EXPLORER, was designed to “harness the creativity of young people in developing innovative and sustainable development projects across the energy spectrum.”
The competition originated in 2019 with AAPG’s Sustainable Development Committee, which created the first two competitions for AAPG’s Latin America and Caribbean Region.
Those years got the program off to a great start and quickly talk turned to seeking financial support to expand it to a global reach.
For the AAPG Foundation, the Committee’s request for support fit perfectly with several specific aspects of the Foundation’s mission.
Emerging from the pandemic, the expanded and supported competition attracted 19 teams from nine countries in 2022. In 2023, that participation grew dramatically, to 42 teams from 11 countries.
Proposed projects in the competition must “cover aspects of the extraction, processing, consumption or disposal of components of the energy chain,” involving (but not limited to) oil, gas, solar, wind, hydroelectric, biomass, nuclear or critical energy minerals “that have an impact on sustainable development objectives.”
Also, projects can be part of any academic training activity, research, lectures or graduate work, but they must be capable of implementation within one year following the award.
Proposals are judged for a variety of values, including originality, relevance, social-environmental-economic factors, and budget.
Those parameters already have led to a plethora of impactful ideas that are as creative as they are inspiring. Last year’s top three winning proposals, respectively, involved:
- Addressing groundwater contamination and affordable access to clean water, planned to be implemented in southwest Ghana
- Basalt aquifer recharge efforts in Marathwada, India
- A reservoir engineering program that helps find safe ways to extract lithium while protecting the endangered Andean flamingo population (“The Jedis Against the Dark Side of Energy Transition”)
“The main challenge we faced (in starting the contest) was to create a call-to-action competition for geoscientists,” Gomez said. “Due to the nature of our education, we tend to specialize in pure science, often unaware of the impact of our work on our communities, countries and the world.
“I believed that our actions, investigations and research as geoscientists could have a greater impact,” she said, “and that’s why I wanted to generate this competition.”
The Next Level?
Past success, of course, is no guarantee of results today, and SDEC Committee members say their efforts are dogged in not just maintaining the program’s innovation, but in finding improvements and ways to expand.
Committee members themselves are eager to be involved with the program, often because they feel the impact sustainable development has had on their own careers.
“I had a couple of ‘light bulb moments’ during my MBA studies, one of which was a desire to showcase my geoscience skills as a holistic understanding of how we develop subsurface natural resources,” said Tunbosun Afolayan, another of the SDEC co-chairs. “From that point, I evolved as a geoscientist.”
Consequently, she became aware of AAPG’s initiative in sustainable development via webinars the Sustainable Development Committee held during the COVID days.
“I consider myself blessed to now be able to express that focus, and utilize my skills, knowledge and expertise as a natural resources’ development expert,” Afolayan said, appreciating having a skill set “that will forever be useful to solving critical world, energy, communication or ‘anything’ crises the world may have to contend with.”
Regarding the SDEC, her goals include effectively expanding its scope to impact all parts of the world, and to help the Committee “metamorphose into ventures that AAPG members can both contribute to and benefit from.
“And seeing geologists take up their roles as natural resources development experts,” she added, “looking beyond their specialist or generalist skills to make tangible impacts.”
Gomez, who was an active supporter and promoter of the competition in its Latin America beginnings, noted the program continues to be a “learning process,” although one lesson is clear: its large-scale success may be tied to successful financial support that attracts and rewards the innovation.
Specifically, she has three goals for the program:
- To establish a self-sustained committee of volunteers who will be involved throughout the projects’ processes. “This is an ongoing effort,” she said.
- To enhance the competition’s reputation among corporations, highlighting its relevance and importance to them
- To go to the next level by not only providing seed money, but also by supporting and accelerating the development of ideas/proposals with a venture lab initiative
“My passion for sustainable development in the energy industry has transformed my perspective,” Gomez said. “It has provided me with a more comprehensive and integrated outlook on my career.
“Furthermore, my enthusiasm for the topic has also influenced my leadership style and my topics of mentorship,” she added. “It has allowed me to connect with students and young professionals in a more meaningful way.”