www.quetsol.com com (Spanish only)
www.quetsollife.org (Spanish/English blog)
At QUETSOL our mission is to distribute and design low-cost solar photovoltaic powered LED lighting, cell phone chargers, electrical generation, and irrigation systems in order to satisfy basic energy needs for families and communities of scarce economic resources. We are a recent startup and use a for-profit model, having formally incorporated as a Sociedad Anónima (equivalent of a corporation). We have a number of channel partners including microfinance institutions for distributing and financing our products. The payback periods on our products range from 3 months to 3 years and come with guarantees of at least 5 years. Our products will help disadvantaged communities light their homes, irrigate crops, and power electronics and appliances, thereby reducing dependence on dangerous and costly kerosene lamps, candles, and diesel generators. Furthermore, we plan on creating local employment by establishing a network of local sales and maintenance agents who will be trained to install and repair our systems and will be paid generous commissions to advertise and sell our products based on a Tupperware party model. Eventually we plan on establishing a local manufacturing base for our products and we aim to design and distribute products made from locally available materials.
Our goal is to eventually become a leader on a regional and global scale in the development and implementation of clean energy technologies across a broad spectrum of demand bandwidths, while always maintaining our commitment to increasing the services and economic opportunities available to families and communities at the base of the social pyramid.
Projects will be conducted at QUETSOL headquarters in Panajachel, Guatemala, about 3 hours outside of the capital on the shores of the beautiful but imperiled Lago de Atitlán. There is a total of 12 Intern positions available detailed below.
There will be a variety of ongoing engineering work throughout the summer. Some stand-alone projects will be completed, and other work will be speculative R&D, which may or may not result in patents. Individuals within the engineering group will have ample freedom to choose amongst the variety of tasks going on simultaneously, but we will ensure that everything gets completed as a group. You will have the tools and materials necessary to accomplish these tasks, as well as some flexibility in budgeting additional material as it becomes necessary. Projects might be completed faster than we expect, and might lead to other projects, etc. In general, we will try to accomplish as much as possible. As a sample of the projects currently in mind:
Interns in the legal division will participate in a variety of tasks in domestic and international jurisdictions. In particular, strong emphasis will be placed on the intellectual property side as we expect some patents to arise from the SIP, as well as ongoing patent work that QUETSOL has already begun. Other relevant issues will revolve around the establishment of QUETSOL subsidiaries in other Central and Latin American countries. As part of the legal team you will be interfacing with QUETSOL legal counsel. You will also be doing a lot of research on your own, on a variety of topics that might include, but not be limited to, the following law branches: environmental, labor, education, taxes, insurance, etc.
The media intern will be an integral part of our marketing efforts, nationally and abroad. QUETSOL will feature a multi-channel media and educational campaign that targets both our customer demographic, but also other corporate, governmental or civil entities. We believe that at QUETSOL we have a very creative and unique approach to marketing and media, as well of intimate experience with local and global media amongst our staff. Tasks will include interfacing with local media, production/handling of marketing material, participation in the creation of educational campaign and strategies, extensive use of social networking (both real and online). This candidate must be able to speak fluent Spanish.
Our Chief Sustainability Advisor is Dr. Tony Pereira who is the founder and head of the UCLA Institute for Sustainable Engineering. He has expressed interest in working with interns to develop papers based on projects for publication in peer-reviewed engineering and scientific journals.
We may be able to offer free accommodation (perhaps greatly subsidized, no more than $65 per month) and some communal meals, though interns would have to purchase/prepare their own food. If participants do not wish to stay at our headquarters, we can provide recommendations for home-stays with local families or other mid-term living arrangements. We recognize that Guatemala is an attractive destination that abounds in cultural and historical sites of interest; therefore we understand and encourage participants to make brief excursions throughout the country throughout their stay. We also may arrange SIP group bonding excursions such as kayaking, volcano trekking, and other exciting adventures!
We prefer individuals who treat work as creative playtime, and who enjoying creatively playing with solar photovoltaic cells, LED lights, cellular phones, agricultural irrigation systems, water purification systems, battery/electrical storage systems, hydroelectric and wind turbine generators, waste water treatment, and organic/ecological agriculture. Backgrounds in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, renewable energy, international development, carbon finance, and business administration are all ideal.
Ideal candidates would be fluent/bilingual in at least two of the following languages: English, Spanish, Tz’utujil, Kaqchikel, K’iche, Mandarin, or Hebrew. Depending on other skills and assets we will consider monolingual applicants.
*Important note*
QUETSOL is a for-profit model and will maintain ownership of all intellectual property produced by interns in the program. Contact QUETSOL if you have any questions.
We may offer the potential of future employment for interns, and at the very least will provide letters of recommendation to students that complete the program.
The dates for the summer internship program are flexible, but in general we expect to have participants arrive and depart more or less according to the standard summer vacation of sponsoring academic institutions (e.g. MIT affiliates would arrive between May 24th and June 7th and depart sometime before fall classes begin – Aug/Sept). Obviously both QUETSOL and interns benefit from longer participant stays, that being said we are amenable to shorter stays (no less than 28 days) if you believe that you can accomplish productive work in that time frame.
For more information, please contact Matthew King, Chief Logistics and Operations Officer, at matt@quetsol.com. To apply for SIP, please send a CV to tono@quetsol.com and matt@quetsol.com. Quetsol will respond to all interested applicants and set up a phone interview, ideally via Skype.
MIT students who develop projects around these ideas may apply for support from the Public Service Center’s Fellowships or Internships programs. Please check the program descriptions and deadlines and talk to program staff to determine which is most appropriate for your needs and project.
If you have funding from outside the PSC that enables you to work on one of this project, that’s great! However, please do let us know if you work on a project you saw advertised here, even if you don’t use our funds. And remember, the PSC staff are happy to advise on service projects even if we are not funding them ourselves.