Terra.do brings climate learning to software engineers in its new program

Software engineers from every field can upskill themselves with the 5week course on climate science, its impacts, and the highest leverage solutions requiring software skills

Terra.do, the world’s first climate education and career transition platform with the mission to get 100 million people working on climate by 2030, has introduced a new course for software engineers. The program intends to educate software engineers on the most critical industry sectors that need software skills to have a massive positive impact on climate change.

Software development is an essential part of climate solutions across different spaces such as energy efficiency & grid optimization, climate and policy impact modeling, climate tech in buildings, food and agriculture, industry, and much more. The course will take engineers through the climate landscape, map climate solutions to software skills, and help them identify the first step they can take, whether that’s contributing to an open-source project, finding a role at a company, starting their own prototype, or anything in-between.

The program is perfect for anyone looking to contribute to climate action via software engineering. Software engineers and engineering managers of all stripes—full-stack, front-end, back-end, mobile, data, DevOps, or an embedded engineer—are welcome in the program. Terra.do’s world-class faculty brings not only climate software expertise and experience but also trained techniques in online teaching and facilitation in the form of personal coaches. The course is spread across five weeks starting with an introduction to climate change, its impact and the latest in climate science, and the role of software in forecasting, production, consumption, and policies. The course will go on to help understand the latest on climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience with a preliminary discussion on how software enables climate action. An example focus area is ‘Renewable Energy and Electrification’. Here, engineers will be able to review case studies of software components that enable more dynamic, distributed, and decentralized energy systems needed by renewable energy sources. There will be discussions on how software enables the energy transition through local microgrids, smart devices with automated load shifting, and more. Other areas include applications of software in climate action including carbon accounting, removal, and offsetting.

The course has been co- created by Lisa Rennels & Antonis Stampoulis. Lisa is a Lead Developer, Mimi.jl package (economic impacts of climate change) and a Ph.D. candidate at Energy & Resources Group, UC Berkeley. She uses computer science methods to research the economic impacts of climate change, and works on software engineering to support research and policy-making in this area. Antonis is Technical Advisor, SustainChain; ex-Director of Engineering, Originate NYC; and Ph.D., Yale University & Post-doc, MIT. He is a software engineering consultant for innovative startups building software platforms in fin-tech and in sustainability. In his consulting practice, he supports software teams in technical design and technical strategy, as well as through engineering mentorship. Guest lecturers include Chris Page, Sustainability Consultant, Climate Interactive; Dr. Charles Fletcher, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Earth Sciences at University of Hawaii at Manoa; Asim Hussain, Green Cloud Advocacy Lead at Microsoft; Michael Cohen, Lead Developer at New Sun Road; and Ilias Bartolini, Engineering Manager at Ecosia.

On finishing the course, the climate-conscious engineer becomes a part of Terra.do’s 1,000+ global Slack community of fellows and mentors from all our programs. This is the space to work with climate enthusiasts working across industry, entrepreneurship, research, policy, activism and more. They also become a part of a community of software engineers, engineering team leaders, entrepreneurs, and more. One can collaborate as they learn and work on assignments in the program thus kickstarting their climate career.

Backed by leading Indian CEOs & investors, the startup aims to solve climate change using the trifecta of education, networking & action. Terra.do raised $1.5M in early-stage funding from a group of climate-conscious angel investors that include: Zomato Founder & CEO Deepinder Goyal, Zerodha Founder & CEO, Nithin Kamath, MakeMyTrip Founder & CEO Deep Kalra, Former Flipkart Chief People Officer Mekin Maheshwari, Yulu Founder Amit Gupta and Helion Venture Partners Co-founder Ashish Gupta.