Saul Griffith is an engineer and inventor. He has been principal investigator on research projects for NASA, Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, the National Science Foundation and US Special Operations Command. He was awarded the MacArthur ‘Genius Grant’ in 2007. He is a founder of the organisations Rewiring America and Rewiring Australia, and the author of Electrify and The Big Switch: Australia’s Electric Future. His forthcoming Quarterly Essay is The Wires That Bind: Electrification and Community Renewal.