Achievement through Action Award - In memory of Christopher A. Weeks
About the Award
The Achievement through Action (Christopher A. Weeks Memorial) Award was presented for the first time in 1983. It comprises a certificate and a cash prize, derived from funds donated for the purpose by Mrs. Marta Weeks. The Award is presented to an individual, a group, or a corporate body that has made an important contribution to the harnessing of solar energy for practical use or is proposing a new concept, development or product for the same purpose.
Nomination Process:
Nominations for the award may be made by members of the Society or by groups of members (i.e. ISES National Sections, ISES Committees or other groups) or Non-members and should be supported by appropriate evidence of the contributions of the nominee. Letters of support can be provided by anyone. Self-nominations (neither by individuals or groups) will not be accepted.
The winner of the 2025 Achievement through Action Award has been announced - meet the winner below!
The next Achievement through Action Award will be awarded in 2027.
2025 Recipient
Harish Hande, the founder and Chief Executive of SELCO Foundation, is a renewable energy entrepreneur with over 30 years of grassroots experience in meeting the energy needs of underserved populations. He is also the founder of SELCO India – a pioneering last-mile rural energy enterprise based in India since the early nineties.
SELCO sees the pressing need to develop a fertile environment to enhance sustainable energy access solutions for the poor. This energy access increases incomes, improves quality of life, and alleviates poverty, turning energy consumers into asset owners. Last-mile energy solutions have clear commercial viability, and SELCO works to combine technical and non-technical aspects focused on alleviating poverty in a sustainable manner.
Today, SELCO is an umbrella of organizations, each tasked to address gaps in the energy access ecosystem. SELCO India established in 1995 runs grassroots operations which sell, install, and service decentralized energy solutions like solar lights systems for households, institutions, digital education, livelihood appliances etc. financed by local financial institutions. SELCO Foundation established in 2010 is an open-source innovation research lab for replicable social innovations across areas: livelihoods, education, and health. SELCO’s incubation program created in 2012 nurtures and catalyzes aspiring clean energy enterprises that deploy and maintain sustainable solutions for underserved communities. Finally SELCO Fund registered in 2016 is an impact fund that seeks to deploy patient capital such as equity or debt to last mile energy access enterprises. SELCO operates at every level of the system and at every point in the supply chain, to build an ecosystem that increases accessibility, affordability, and appropriate renewable energy solutions for the poor. Collectively SELCO has so far impacted over 6 million people.
Harish, graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and holds a Masters and PhD from University of Massachusetts, USA. In recognition of his vision and the efforts of SELCO,he has been awarded national and international awards including the reputed Zayed Future Energy Prize in 2018 and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship also in 2018. In 2011, Harish was conferred the Ramon Magsaysay Award in recognition of his vision to catalyse development outcomes via sustainable energy.
2021 Recipient
The 2021 award is presented to the Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition (GWNET)
The Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition (GWNET) aims to advance the global energy transition by empowering women in energy through interdisciplinary networking, advocacy, training, and mentoring. GWNET seeks to address the current gender imbalances in the energy sector and to promote gender-sensitive action around the energy transition in all parts of the world.
2019 Recipient
ISES is very pleased to present this award to Prof. Ricardo Rüther, Brazil.
Ricardo Rüther is a metallurgical Engineer from the Federal University of RioGrande do Sul with a Master in Mining, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Ph.D. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from University of Western Australia ,postdoctoral fellow for photovoltaic solar systems at Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Germany and postdoctoral fellow for photovoltaic solar systems integrated to buildings at the University of Western Australia. He currently is a Professor at UFSC and coordinator of the EC82-1ABNT-Brazilian Association of Technical Standards (Commission of Study Conversion Systems of Photovoltaic Solar Energy). He was founder and first president of ABENS (the Brazilian Section of the International Solar Energy Society) and is part of the National Institute of Science and Technology in Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency in the Amazon (INCT-EREEA).
2017 Recipient
The 2017 recipient of this award went to Prof. Aldo Steinfeld and the Professorship of Renewable Energy Carriers, ETH Zurich in Switzerland
Professor Aldo Steinfeld heads the Professorship of Renewable Energy Carriers in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH Zurich. His research program is aimed at the advancement of the thermal and chemical engineering sciences applied to renewable energy technologies. His research focus comprises heat and mass transfer phenomena and multi-phase reacting flows, with applications in solar power, fuels, and materials production, CO2 capture and utilization, energy storage and sustainable energy systems. He is one of the leading scholars in the field of solar energy, in particular for his outstanding contributions to the fundamentals of high-temperature/high-flux solar energy conversion. His group has pioneered the development of solar-driven thermochemical reactor technologies for producing clean transportation fuels from water and CO2.
Prof. Steinfeld has authored more than 320 refereed journal papers and supervised 42 PhD theses to date. The impact of his work is attested by over 17,000 citations. His contributions to science and education have been recognized with several prestigious international awards, the more recent one being the 2016 ASME Kreith Energy Award for his work leading to a secure and sustainable energy future. He is member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences and of the International Solar Energy Society’s Board of Directors.
2015 Recipient
This award is given to Prof. Klaus Vajen and his research group at the Institute of Thermal Energy Engineering, University of Kassel. The focus of his group’s scientific work is on solar thermal, thermal energy systems, sorption processes and energy efficiency in buildings. In the context of R & D projects, Prof. Vajen and his group maintains approximately 50 on-going international co-operative projects.
2013 Recipient
In 2013, Dr. Larry Kazmerski is being honoured for his work as a leading researcher in the field of photovoltaics and his work at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the U.S.A. He is receiving the award for his lifelong contributions in accelerating PV research, development and deployment around the world. He is recognized for his dedication and leadership.
