Prof. Toby Cumberbatch
Prof. Toby Cumberbatch was a professor of electrical engineering at The Cooper Union in New York City from 1994 to 2018. His principal research interests are developing engineering practices to address the needs of impoverished, marginalized communities through Engineering for the Middle of Nowhere.
In 2003 he took his first group of students to a village in West Africa where he had lived as a child. From these trips and other classes emerged SociaLite Lighting Systems, a small 501c3 that manufactures and installs lighting systems and micro-grids for communities in regions without infrastructure. Dr. Cumberbatch continues to develop these systems and support SociaLite’s operations in Ghana and beyond.