More than a billion people in the developing world live off the grid, without electricity.
A professor at a Central Coast college is working to change that, with a new device to help them get power.
Taufik is an electrical engineer from Indonesia, where many people - like himself - are known by only one name.
Indonesia also has trouble getting electricity to rural areas, which is what inspireid Taufik's invention, "Multiple Input Single Output DC-DC Converter with Equal Load Sharing on Multiple Inputs", or MISO.
MISO allows a number of small, low energy sources combine into one big household energy source, Taufik says.
“Instead of using one single source like from the sun, they can use energy from the wind, energy from the water, even human power," Taufik says. "It doesn’t matter how small it is.”
Taufik has been teaching at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for almost two decades. He worked with the university, and a former student, to build the device, which is scheduled to receive a patent this fall.