Nikitaa Sivaakumar

Nikitaa Sivaakumar is a recent design MFA graduate from UC Davis. She has a background in Civil Engineering. She is interested in the intersection of renewable energy and grassroots education. Her thesis project at UC Davis, MakeGlow, is an easy-to-fold cardboard solar lantern intended to be built by school students from rural India. Her project won Second place under the Energy and Resource Alternatives category at Big Ideas, UC Berkeley 2016-17 and also received the Poverty Alleviation through Sustainable Solutions grant by Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Davis. She is currently pursuing the Innovator-In-Residence Fellowship at SELCO, Bangalore to develop MakeGlow into a manufacturable product. She is working with Sol Design Lab on their solar education materials and new design projects in the US and India.