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JANUARY 2021 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 77 The Journey Continues I ended my 2016 article, "The lessons learned were far too many to cover in even a year's worth of articles," which has stuck with me as unfinished business. This Leadership 101 se- ries is my chance to fix this. I hope you join me as the journey continues. PCB007 Steve Williams is the president of The Right Approach Consulting. To read past columns or contact Williams, click here. ership is influence. Period. When writing my October 2016 column, another a-ha moment for me was realizing (unknowingly) that I had come to this same conclusion during my lead- ership journey, prior to John Maxwell. Early in my career I was an autocratic manager that got things done through the power of my title. This is not leadership. Using brute force and intimidation is not leadership; it is not even being a good manager. Inspiring and helping others achieve greatness is leadership. The brilliance of this is that the fastest path of suc- cess for a leader is by helping others become successful. The team investigated perovskite-inspired materials, which were created to circumvent problems with mate- rials called perovskites, which were developed for next- generation solar cells. Although perovskites are cheaper to make than traditional silicon-based solar panels and deliver similar efficiency, perovskites contain toxic lead substances. This drove the development of perovskite- inspired materials, which are instead based on safer ele- ments like bismuth and antimony. Despite being more environmentally friendly, these perovskite-inspired materials are not as efficient at ab- sorbing sunlight. However, the team found that the ma- terials are much more effective at absorbing indoor light, with efficiencies that are promising for commercial appli- cations. Crucially, the researchers demonstrated that the power provided by these materials under indoor illumina- tion is already sufficient to operate electronic circuits. (University of Cambridge) We are increasingly using more smart devices like smartphones, smart speakers, and wearable health and wellness sensors in our homes, offices, and public build- ings. However, the batteries they use can deplete quick- ly and contain toxic and rare environmentally damaging chemicals, so researchers are looking for better ways to power the devices. One way to power them is by converting indoor light from ordinary bulbs into energy, in a similar way to how solar panels harvest energy from sunlight, known as so- lar photovoltaics. However, due to the different properties of the light sources, the materials used for solar panels are not suitable for harvesting indoor light. Now, researchers from the University of Cambridge, Im- perial College London and Soochow University in China have discovered that new green materials currently be- ing developed for next-generation solar panels could be useful for indoor light harvesting. They report their find- ings in Advanced Energy Materials. "By efficiently absorbing the light com- ing from lamps commonly found in homes and buildings, the materials can turn light into electricity with an efficiency already in the range of commercial technologies," said co-author Dr Robert Hoye from Imperial Col- lege London. "We have also already identi- fied several possible improvements, which would allow these materials to surpass the performance of current indoor photovoltaic technologies in the near future." Green Materials Could Power Smart Devices With Ambient Light