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The Latest from CoGenerate

Event Recording: Book Talk: Cogeneration in the Age of AI

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Simple question: Do you miss human connection when you use self-checkout at the grocery store? Complex question: How is cogeneration threatened by AI, profit-driven “efficiencies,” and automation — and what can we do about it? Allison Pugh, author of the book The Last...

Putting Two Things Together

Putting Two Things Together

On Friday, May 15, I had the great honor to address the 2026 graduates of Drew University, including the undergraduate College of Liberal Arts, the Theological School, and the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies. I'm very grateful to Drew's remarkable President...

Introducing the CoGen Voices Fellows

Introducing the CoGen Voices Fellows

Across the country, young people and older people are stepping up as civic leaders. But too often, they do this critical work with peers, in age-segregated spaces. Young people work without the benefit of older generations who bring lived experience, networks, and a...

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Darwin Curtis

Solar Household Energy, Inc.
Purpose Prize Fellow 2010

Curtis is working to improve public health and reduce environmental stress in the developing world by replacing traditional fuel sources with solar ovens.

While stationed in Asia and Africa with the foreign service, Darwin Curtis saw firsthand the public health and environmental problems facing the developing world. Among them: cooking over wood and charcoal, practices that lead to respiratory disease, eye infection, burns and global warming.

Curtis wanted to provide an alternative. “I realized that cooking without creating that insidious smoke could bring relief to half the people on our planet and even to our planet itself,” says Curtis.

In 1989, he learned of solar cooking technology. He and two colleagues established the nonprofit Solar Household Energy Inc. in Chevy Chase, Md. They developed the HotPot – a breakthrough solar cooker that combined durability, efficiency and low cost – to introduce the technology in Africa and Latin America.

Approximately 25,000 HotPots have been sold for cash or barter since 2005. A conservative estimate suggests that those ovens are reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 10,000 metric tons a year.