Dr. Peter W. Heller, Canopus Foundation

Peter is the co-founder and executive director of the Canopus Foundation, a registered charitable family foundation launched at Freiburg/Germany in 1997. Since 2001 Canopus has ventured into the field of venture philanthropy. It promotes private social investments and business development assistance for social entrepreneurs working in the field of rural electrification and clean energy technologies in developing countries. Peter is the founder, owner and executive director of forseo GmbH, an independent investment company dedicated to clean and sustainable energy technologies. He studied economics and philosophy at the universities of St. Gallen, Lausanne (Switzerland) and Freiburg (Germany) and holds a PhD degree in economics.

Peter is co-founder of the Solar for All Initiative and is member of the Investment Committee of the Bamboo Global Energy Fund − Solar for All. 

Barbara Börner, Canopus Foundation

Barbara is Deputy Director of the Canopus Foundation. She has over 10 years experience in the solar industry and clean tech sector. She is part of the management team of the Solar for All Initiative since its founding in 2008 by Ashoka and Canopus foundation. Barbara is director of the Solar for All Support Facility. Since 2005 Barbara teaches Social Entrepreneurship at an international Master program of Freiburg University.

Astrid Grell, Canopus Foundation

Astrid is project manager in the Solar for All-team. She has managed international projects for forseo in the renewable energy and cleantech sector for 6 years. Astrid has an engineering degree in landscape architecture from Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany.

Stefanie Hertlein, Canopus Foundation

Stefanie joined the Solar for All team in July 2011. She is responsible for the Solar for All communications. After finishing her M.A. in Geography, Economics and Cultural Anthropologies at the University of Freiburg in 2008, she worked for a fair trade labeling organization where she was in charge of public relations and awareness raising.

David Green, Ashoka

David Green has worked with many organizations to make medical technology and health care services sustainable, affordable and accessible to all. David helped establish Aurolab (India), to produce affordable intraocular lenses (now has 8% of the global market share) and suture. He now works as an Ashoka Vice President (since 2004) to create social investing instruments to support sustainable social enterprises (in eye care and solar energy). He also helped create Conversion Sound, a social enterprise to make affordable hearing devices with a novel fitting; and Quantum Catch, to make optical products affordable. David graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor in General Studies (1978) and a Masters degree in Public Health (1982). He is the recipient of the 2009 "Spirit of Helen Keller" award for humanitarian efforts in blindness prevention and is the recipient of the 2009 University of Michigan Humanitarian Service Award.

David is the co-initiator of Solar for All, brings his experience in social investment to the table and is mainly involved with active deal sourcing as entrepreneur in residence.

Roman Ritter, independent consultant 

Roman works as Portfolio Manager of the Solar for All Support Facility. He has more than 10 years of experience on rural electrification. Previously, he worked as program director for the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and spent two years in the German solar industry. Roman holds a Masters degree in Economics and is a trained banker.

Elisabeth Ayvazian, independent consultant

Elisabeth worked for Deutsche Bank’s social investments team for three years in New York, leading the effort to set up the Eye Fund, a pioneering social investment fund in healthcare. She also managed a number of Deutsche Bank’s relationships with microfinance institutions. Elisabeth supports the development of the Bamboo Global Energy Fund - Solar for All and is responsible for the identification of potential investees.