Speakers

Dr. Norwell J. Hinds is a sustainable development and innovation specialist from Guyana whose work spans energy development and governance, public policy, human capital development and public diplomacy. Norwell serves as Director of the University of Guyana’s Institute for Energy Diplomacy where he administers UG’s research, training and thought leadership on complex energy transitions and emerging energy markets. In this role he also coordinates the University of Guyana Energy Think Tank. He led the Caribbean Energy Poverty Study covering Guyana, Belize, Jamaica and Suriname and was involved in the high-level engagements to develop Guyana’s Local Content Policy, review Guyana’s Crude Lift Agreement and plan Guyana’s petroleum sector legislative reform. He was also a convener in the effort to establish the Public Oversight and Accountability Committee of the Natural Resource Fund. Norwell is a member of the Association of International Energy Negotiators and volunteers on its Renewable Energy Task Force and Nuclear Task Force.

Prior to his current role, Dr. Hinds was a notable global youth and civil society leader. He remains the only Guyanese to have been awarded the United Nation’s Population Fund’s Special Youth Fellowship for Latin American and the Caribbean and served on the Global Youth Advisory Panel to the United Nations Under Secretary General and Executive Director of UNFPA. Norwell worked with MTV on the global ‘Staying Alive’ campaign and was a member of the Global Inter-agency Panel on HIV/AIDS and Young People; the NGO Delegation to the Global Fund Board; the International Working Group on Drug related Harm Reduction and the CARICOM Sub-Committee on Health and Family Life Education. He brings these global and regional experiences to his people-centered approach to energy development.

Norwell earned degrees in Computer Science and Information Systems at the University of Guyana before completing a PhD in Innovation in Global Development at Arizona State University as a University of Guyana–ExxonMobil Foundation Advanced Community Engaged (ACE) Scholar. His PhD research focused on how everyday life depends on energy systems and how the design and rules of those systems can create or reduce energy vulnerability. This work looks at how technologies (like electricity meters), institutions (like utilities, markets and regulators), and household realities interact to shape whether people can use energy reliably, affordably, and with dignity.