Center for Sustainable Energies, Entrepreneurship, and Development in the Global South

The TUM SEED Center was established at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in 2020 in close collaboration with eight leading technical universities in the Global South, including Bahir Dar University (Ethiopia), Bandung Institute of Technology (Indonesia), Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (India), Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (Kenya), Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Ghana), Makerere University (Uganda), Namibia University of Science and Technology (Namibia), and Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (Peru). The TUM SEED Center addresses Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 to ensure access to affordable and clean energy for all by 2030. While great progress has been made regarding access to electricity in the past decade on a global scale, 675 million still live without access to electricity, whereof most of them are located in the rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia. 

The TUM SEED Center fosters academic exchange and conducts interdisciplinary research and teaching at the intersection of sustainable energies and entrepreneurship. SEED is an acronym, which stands for Sustainable Energies, Entrepreneurship and Development (SEED) in the Global South. The SEED logo symbolizes a seedling, which  grows and flourishes. This refers to the young bright talents, students  and scholars, who benefit from the academic exchange, and to the people in the rural communities of the Global South, who gain access to electricity, and ultimately a better quality of life. 

Building on the accomplishments of the first funding phase 2020-2024, the TUM SEED Center seeks to consolidate and expand the existing global network between TUM, the partner universities in the Global South, and the partners of practice in the second funding phase 2025-2029. 

Starting date: 01.12.2025 

PI: Dr.-Ing. Markus Disse, PhD student: Zahra Mesmarian