Itron Inspire

Ex-Im Bank drives growth in Africa and America

August 19, 2014

Today Itron President and CEO Philip Mezey provided a guest blog post to The Hill Newspaper.

In his post, Mezey shares ways the Ex-Im Bank and similar development finance agencies support U.S. private investment that is a great aid to the African continent, which faces tremendous challenges as well as equally great promise.

"If there was ever a continent of contrasts, Africa is it. It boasts five of the world’s 12 fastest growing economies, but millions remain entrenched in poverty. Parts of the continent are rich in energy resources like oil and solar power, yet at least 550 million Africans – and two out of three sub-Saharan Africans – lack electricity.  According to the World Bank, if you exclude South Africa, the entire installed generation capacity of sub-Saharan Africa is just 28 Gigawatts, roughly equivalent to Argentina’s capacity. I believe that the way we manage energy infrastructure will define this century. With reliable electricity access, the United Nations’ Sustainable Energy for All initiative points out, “children can study after dark. Clinics can store life-saving vaccines. Countries can grow more resilient, competitive economies.”

To read the full article, click here.

Wystąpił błąd podczas przetwarzania szablonu.
The following has evaluated to null or missing:
==> authorContent.contentFields  [in template "44616#44647#114455" at line 9, column 17]

----
Tip: It's the step after the last dot that caused this error, not those before it.
----
Tip: If the failing expression is known to legally refer to something that's sometimes null or missing, either specify a default value like myOptionalVar!myDefault, or use <#if myOptionalVar??>when-present<#else>when-missing</#if>. (These only cover the last step of the expression; to cover the whole expression, use parenthesis: (myOptionalVar.foo)!myDefault, (myOptionalVar.foo)??
----

----
FTL stack trace ("~" means nesting-related):
	- Failed at: contentFields = authorContent.content...  [in template "44616#44647#114455" at line 9, column 1]
----
1<#assign 
2	webContentData = jsonFactoryUtil.createJSONObject(author.getData()) 
3	classPK = webContentData.classPK 
4/> 
5 
6<#assign 
7authorContent = restClient.get("/headless-delivery/v1.0/structured-contents/" + classPK + "?fields=contentFields%2CfriendlyUrlPath%2CtaxonomyCategoryBriefs") 
8contentFields = authorContent.contentFields 
9categories=authorContent.taxonomyCategoryBriefs 
10authorContentData = jsonFactoryUtil.createJSONObject(authorContent) 
11friendlyURL = authorContentData.friendlyUrlPath 
12authorCategoryId = "0" 
13/> 
14 
15<#list contentFields as contentField > 
16   <#assign  
17	 contentFieldData = jsonFactoryUtil.createJSONObject(contentField)  
18	 name = contentField.name 
19	 /> 
20	 <#if name == 'authorImage'> 
21	    <#if (contentField.contentFieldValue.image)??> 
22	        <#assign authorImageURL = contentField.contentFieldValue.image.contentUrl />	 
23			</#if> 
24	 </#if> 
25	 <#if name == 'authorName'> 
26	    <#assign authorName = contentField.contentFieldValue.data /> 
27			<#list categories as category > 
28         <#if authorName == category.taxonomyCategoryName> 
29				     <#assign authorCategoryId = category.taxonomyCategoryId /> 
30				 </#if> 
31      </#list> 
32	 </#if> 
33	 <#if name == 'authorDescription'> 
34	    <#assign authorDescription = contentField.contentFieldValue.data /> 
35			 
36	 </#if> 
37	  
38	 <#if name == 'authorJobTitle'> 
39	    <#assign authorJobTitle = contentField.contentFieldValue.data /> 
40			 
41	 </#if> 
42 
43</#list> 
44 
45<div class="blog-author-info"> 
46	<#if authorImageURL??> 
47		<img class="blog-author-img" id="author-image" src="${authorImageURL}" alt="" /> 
48	</#if> 
49	<#if authorName??> 
50		<#if authorName != ""> 
51			<p class="blog-author-name">By <a id="author-detail-page" href="/w/${friendlyURL}?filter_category_552298=${authorCategoryId}"><span id="author-full-name">${authorName}</span></a></p> 
52			<hr /> 
53		</#if> 
54	</#if> 
55	<#if authorJobTitle??> 
56		<#if authorJobTitle != ""> 
57			<p class="blog-author-title" id="author-job-title" >${authorJobTitle}</p> 
58			<hr /> 
59		</#if> 
60	</#if> 
61	<#if authorDescription??> 
62		<#if authorDescription != "" && authorDescription != "null" > 
63			<p class="blog-author-desc" id="author-job-desc">${authorDescription}</p> 
64			<hr /> 
65		</#if> 
66	</#if> 
67</div>