We are a team of passionate people supporting the international development sector with modern tools and approaches for monitoring and evaluation, collaboration, knowledge management and research. Since we used to work in development cooperation ourselves, we speak your language.
We are committed to ....
- use our creativity and imagination to design new solutions that fit your needs,
- help your team in working more efficiently,
- with our research tap the wisdom of the crowd,
- join efforts to make you achieve your goals.
“We develop online platforms to improve collaboration and communication within teams, organizations and in general between stakeholders. This is part of a greater vision to make development cooperation more transparent, efficient and effective. That's why I founded energypedia and energypedia consult."
Robert Heine, founder and CEO of energypedia and energypedia consult
Our Offices in Germany and Rwanda
energypedia consult's headquarters is in Eschborn, Germany, but we also have an office in Wiesbaden. In 2018, we opened our first office branch abroad in Kigali, Rwanda. This office hosts the "One-stop-monitoring shop Rwanda" and is headed by Melanie Uhlen.
Our Team
Robert Heine
Managing Director
Robert Heine
Managing Director
Robert has a passion for wikis and efficiency - two things that are high in demand in the international development sector. His academic background is Geography and he holds a Master's degree in Evaluation from the University of Saarbrücken. Robert has over 10 years of work experience in the transport, energy and M&E sectors at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in Germany, Bangladesh and Kosovo. He knows the challenges of knowledge management and effective M&E systems inside-out and is keen on finding innovative solutions.
Hector Alfaro
Marketing
Hector Alfaro
Marketing
Hector believes in online platforms as drivers for social change, and is committed to the promotion of open-source software and open sharing of information. With work experience both in the private and the development sector and a background in international business, he’s now managing the marketing unit in order to promote wiki platforms as knowledge exchange resources with the potential for making development cooperation projects more transparent.
Senait Atobirhan
Administration
Senait Atobirhan
Administration
Senait has started working with us in September 2019. Back from parental leave, she takes care of administration at the office in Wiesbaden. Born in Eritrea and raised up in Germany, she has many years of professional experience as an office clerk.
Ranisha Basnet
Energy Consultant
Ranisha Basnet
Energy Consultant
Born and raised in Nepal, Ranisha has always been a fervent advocate of using renewable energy technologies to promote sustainable energy for all in developing countries. She has an academic background in renewable energy and has been working for two years for the platform energypedia.info. Both qualifications are valuable contributions to the energy research unit.
Lisa Feldmann
Energy Consultant and Marketing
Lisa Feldmann
Energy Consultant and Marketing
Lisa is part of energypedia consult since its beginnings in 2012, setting up the company. Her expertise lies in energy access topics, public relations, knowledge management, and monitoring & evaluation. She has over 10 years of work experience in the development cooperation sector, working also part-time for energypedia nonprofit and prior to this for GIZ’s program on poverty-oriented basic energy services (HERA). She holds a Master of Arts in Communication Studies, Political Science and Cultural Anthropology.
Johanna Hartmann
Energy Consultant
Johanna Hartmann
Energy Consultant
Before joining energypedia consult, Johanna worked as an independent consultant for the global partnership Energising Development (EnDev) on monitoring and reporting. Since 2016, she enriches the energy research unit with her expertise in energy economics and market development for energy access products. Her passion is all about spreading the knowledge about efficient use of energy, especially for cooking. She has a Master's degree in Latin American Studies with a focus on economics.
Axel Heinemann
IT Consultant
Axel Heinemann
IT Consultant
Being an IT specialist by profession, Axel built up his ICT expertise while working several years as an IT advisor at the University of Mainz and as System & Network Administrator in the private sector. He also completed a university degree in Cultural Anthropology, with a minor in Sociology, and worked for five years as a college lecturer for the Kiswahili language. Axel is keen on implementing creative and innovative solutions for storing and sharing knowledge.
Nikolai Hergt
M&E Consultant
Nikolai Hergt
M&E Consultant
Nikolai has been working in the international development sector for 10 years. He still used paper questionnaires for his master's thesis and various field studies. Since then he has a passion for digital data collection and M&E tools. Nikolai has set up, optimized and digitized various M&E systems for GIZ, and during this time he has gained plenty of field experience. Since 2016, Nikolai works as a freelance consultant. He holds a Master's degree in Peace and Conflict Studies and is currently completing an extra-occupational Master in Evaluation.
Tom Schulze
IT Consultant
Tom Schulze
IT Consultant
Tom believes that information is key for sustainable decision-making. At energypedia consult he can successfully combine his keen interest and prior experience in the development sector and his skills in data analytics, information technology and web development to build and implement innovative solutions. Tom has an academic background in environmental sciences and policy. Prior stations include among others the EU Energy Initiative Partnership Dialogue Facility, the Mercator Research Institute on Climate Change and the Energy and Resources Institute. Tom speaks fluent English and French.
Melanie Uhlen
M&E Consultant, Country Director Rwanda
Melanie Uhlen
M&E Consultant, Country Director Rwanda
Melanie joined energypedia consult in 2013 and is now Country Director of our Rwanda office in Kigali, Rwanda, where she heads the "One-stop-monitoring shop Rwanda". Her job combines what she finds to be one of the most important topics in the development sector – M&E – with the opportunities to apply her IT skills and to conduct trainings and workshops in an international environment. While completing her Master's degree in Public Policy and Human Development (University of Maastricht, the Netherlands) and working in the consultancy business, she has come to realize that sound M&E systems are key to the effectiveness of aid programmes and their accountability towards donors and beneficiaries.
Simon Letichevsky
Student Assistant
Simon Letichevsky
Student Assistant
Simon joined energypedia consult as a student assistant for IT in November 2018. He is a visionary and believes in a bright future, where information technology will definitely change the lives of all mankind. Working with passion on IT solutions is his daily motto. He studies information technology at FH Wiesbaden and is happy to use his knowledge to assist energypedia consult in front-end issues.
Ahmed El-Sherbini
Student Assistant
Ahmed El-Sherbini
Student Assistant
Ahmed joined energypedia consult as a student assistant for research and IT in December 2018. He is very much interested in socio-economic aspects of renewable energy and its ability to meet the needs of small communities. Currently, he is pursuing a master's degree in Environmental & Resource Management at Brandenburg Technical University (B-TU) in Cottbus, Germany. He has a bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering from Mansoura University, Egypt and is experienced in the installation of solar thermal heaters. He will support energy research and also the IT department.
Our Commitment
Energypedia consult considers itself a responsible company, treating clients, partners and team members with respect, honesty and fairness.
Being a subsidiary of energypedia non profit we also are conscious of our corporate responsibility. Thus, we try to minimize our consumption of resources as far as possible. This means running our wikis on CO2 neutral servers as well as buying only eco-friendly office materials. Also with regard to our suppliers sustainability is of importance. Within Germany we travel by train only and for international flights we compensate our CO2 footprint.
With our profits we support the platform www.energypedia.info [10], thereby promoting experience exchange worldwide on renewable energy in developing countries.
Our Approach
Our quest is to simplify teamwork by using open-source web-based software. We want to make sure that people in the development sector find the information they need with user-friendly tools. To this end, we developed the toolboxes WebMo for results-based monitoring, project management as well as knowledge management and collaboration.
Web-based
Web-based work means creating, editing and saving content not in a file, such as Word or Excel, but on a website. This implies that even when working with a group of people, all data is gathered in a single location. Overviews are automatically updated, as soon as someone enters data. This avoids the risk of using an old version of a file or creating parallel file structures.
Open-Source
We promote the use of open-source software. This means that our customers have full access to their platforms source code and therefore can at all times work on it themselves or hire local IT specialists to do so. We strive to build a long-lasting relationship with our customers thanks to quality service and results, not by establishing dependency. Apart from that, the open-source approach fosters IT knowledge transfer to and IT capacity building in developing countries.
Modular Tools
When setting up a web platform, we use a module-based approach in order to provide you with exactly those functionalities you need for your project, organization or network – no more and no less! Have a look at our different tools and select the ones relevant for your circumstances. As a result, you are only paying for the tools that you actually need. We will, of course, advise you before and during the installation of your customized platform and will always be available for questions and new ideas afterwards.
Wikis
Wikis are online platforms that enable users not only to read content, but to directly write or edit it in their browser. Like an intranet with edit button. This makes wikis particularly useful for information-sharing, collaborative work and the coordination of tasks and groups. A wiki minimizes the risk of working with outdated data, duplicating work and unnecessary, time-consuming communication loops – and it significantly reduces the number of emails in your inbox.