Selamawit Beneberu is an electrical engineer with over 12 years of expertise in off-grid electrification. Selamawit received a BSc in Electrical Engineering from Defense Engineering College (DEC) and an MSc in Electrical Engineering from Addis Abeba University (AAU). She is currently enrolled in a Master of Business Administration degree at the AAU Faculty of Business and Economics to advance her professional and leadership growth.

Selamawit expresses that her school background as an electrical engineer was initially the driving force behind her decision to work in the off-grid energy sector. However, since joining the GIZ energy program Ethiopia in July 2010, she has had the opportunity to gain firsthand experience in a field in which she has developed a strong interest.

For seven years, Slelamawit was a Technical Advisor for the GIZ EPE SNNP regional energy program, promoting and developing alternative decentralized clean energy solutions. She then went on to join the GIZ EPE Addis Office mini-grid team in January 2017. In addition, she is serving as the vice-chairperson of the Ethiopian in Energy association board from 2019 to the present.

Working for GIZ, she was part of a team that worked towards the development of decentralized off-grid cooperatively owned and managed mini-hydropower projects to electrify off-grid villages. At the mini-grid team, she developed mini-grid project implementation plans, conducted stakeholder mapping, coordinated activities for effective renewable energy promotion, organized and led technical and business development supports, training workshops, and cross-sector network meetings to strengthen links between government partners and other actors. Moreover, she gave technical assistance for design verification, local capacity development and project implementation, and follow-up. She also worked to link project operations with cross-cutting efforts such as Gender, Population, and HIV.