Rhonda Jordan Antoine
Senior Energy Specialist, World Bank
2021 U.S. C3E International Award Winner
Rhonda Jordan Antoine is a Senior Energy Specialist at the World Bank where she works on energy investment and advisory projects across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). She also leads the World Bank’s Geospatial Electrification Planning in the Africa Region project, which to date has leveraged cutting-edge Geographic Information System (GIS) analytics to inform World Bank energy engagements in 30 countries and underpin comprehensive electrification strategies and plans in 20 countries in SSA.
With more than 12 years of experience in energy and development, Jordan Antoine has worked across the Middle East and North Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa regions in the areas of power sector planning, utility performance, mini-grid regulation, solar home system deployment, transmission expansion, and variable renewable energy integration. She has helped design, prepare, and implement nine projects across the Caribbean and SSA that provide 4.9 million people with electricity access; provide 19,000 schools, health facilities, and SMEs with power; and install 1GW of renewable energy capacity. Prior to joining the World Bank, she worked for the United Nations Environment Programme on rural electrification in East Africa and cofounded and managed an energy services company that, for five years, provided electricity to households and small businesses in Tanzania lacking access to the central grid.
To complement her passion for clean energy and energy access, Jordan Antoine is a formally trained dancer. She has performed around the globe and in 2007 was honored and privileged to dance alongside Savion Glover on ABC's Dancing with the Stars. She also taught dance for 13 years and for another 8 years sat on the board of an arts and technology foundation whose aim was to create programming that exposes D.C.-area inner-city youth to both the arts and sciences. Today, Jordan Antoine continues to mentor young women through dance programs and takes pride in being a role model to inspire new scientists and engineers – even through the arts!
Jordan Antoine holds both BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, as well as a PhD in Engineering Systems from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
+ Learn more about Rhonda Jordan Antoine's clean energy journey
Lighting Up Sub-Saharan Africa
Rhonda Jordan Antoine was pursuing a successful engineering career, earning her master’s in electrical engineering from Columbia University, when she began to question her trajectory. How could engineering make a tangible difference in people’s lives? She took a break from school to follow her second passion: dancing.
“While I was performing, I took my first trip to Africa. We were staying at the nicest hotel in Luanda. For rehearsal, they picked us up in a limo. I walked out of the hotel with my bottled water, and right next to the hotel, there were mud huts and children who didn't have access to running water or electricity. It really stuck with me...I applied for the PhD program at MIT because I wanted to better understand this challenge and figure out how I could use my skillset to offer help to people around the world.”
While earning her PhD in engineering systems, Jordan Antoine joined forces with colleagues to launch EGG-Energy, one of the first off-grid energy companies in Africa. EGG has provided clean electricity to 1,500 Tanzanians and reduced their energy costs by over 18%.
From MIT and EGG, Jordan Antoine went on to join the World Bank, where she supports energy projects across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Her current work includes energy investment and advisory projects in Burundi, Lesotho, Sierra Leone, and Ghana.
Jordan Antoine also leads a key World Bank project: Geospatial Electrification Planning in the Africa Region. The project is moving the energy access field into the digital age by using extensive computer modeling and geospatial analysis to help guide and optimize investment programs. To date, this effort has leveraged cutting-edge geographic information system (GIS) analytics to inform World Bank energy engagements in 30 countries and underpin comprehensive electrification strategies and plans in 20 countries in SSA.
Her work, and that of her team, is contributing measurably to the pace of electrification in Africa—and to the accompanying rate of decline in poverty in many countries. To date, she has helped design, prepare, and implement projects across the Caribbean and SSA that provide 4.9 million people with electricity access and power 19,000 schools, health facilities, and small businesses.
Jordan Antoine continues to dance. She has performed around the globe, and in 2007, she danced alongside Savion Glover on ABC's Dancing with the Stars. She sees dancing as an avenue to mentoring young women and exposing inner city youth to both the arts and sciences. “It's a way to unlock creativity and innovation,” she says, “and it’s an opportunity for me to inspire other young people who may be doing dance as a hobby, or even want to do it professionally, but could also do something in STEM.”