My name is Joe Kselman.  I work at the University Of Maryland College Park in the Electrical Engineering Department as a project coordinator.  I helped to develop and build the MESA lab, the universities first lab dedicated to sustainable power generation with a focus on solar and wind.  

In my free time I've spent the past few years working to bring power to an impoverished village called Gauterine in the state of Bihar, India.  Gauterine village is near the village of one of our organizations members family, Sunil Sharma. Sunil and I started in the Spring of 2013 by installing a 200 watt panel along with a 12v 80 Amp Hour battery and a 1200 watt inverter.  We set up the school with a ceiling fan lights and outlets inside and out so people could charge their phones.  

Less than a year later we went back and installed a couple of Raspberry Pi computers and a bigger battery and inverter.  Then in the spring of 2014 we successfully crowd funded enough money to distribute a solar home lighting system to every home in Gauterine Village

Previously the people had relied on kerosene for their lighting now they have 2 10 watt LED bulbs, a 30 watt solar panel, 1 multi port phone charger and of course the battery/charging station 12v 8AH.  Cleaner, brighter and healthier.

After our success with Gauterine we decided to expand our mission to other villages not connected to the grid.  So we formed our non profit organization.The Solar Village Project.

We are currently running our second fundraiser to provide 150 solar home lighting systems to Kihare Village in Bihar India.  

The Kihare Solar Village Project