Mansi Prakash’s bright idea has helped light up more than 5,000 homes in one rural village. Most college students don’t know what they want to major in, let alone what their mission in life might be. But New York University student Mansi Prakash’s goals couldn’t be clearer: to bring clean energy to developing nations, support education, and fight poverty. Not bad for a 20-year-old economics major who first witnessed the energy dilemma on a 2010 visit to her grandparents’ village in India and later founded the nonprofit Brighter Today. Most families have light bulbs—they just weren’t turning them on and using them,” Prakash recalls of her trip. “I was intrigued by this, and as I interacted with them more, I learned that this living condition stemmed from low incomes and electricity costs. For someone who couldn’t afford food three times a day, paying the high electricity bills was not an option.” An idea clicked for Prakash: Do away with the energy-efficient 60-watt incandescent bulbs that only work for two months and replace them with 11-watt compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) bulbs, which—while initially costing more at $2 per bulb instead of 20 cents—would last significantly longer, averaging three to four years. In the […]