Stanford University is hosting an energy conference tomorrow put on by Energy Crossroads and the Roosevelt Institution. “The Roosevelt Energy Challenge: Writing a New Path for Energy Policy in the U.S” challenges all university-level students to submit innovative solutions to our global energy crisis, and will highlight student contributions to energy policy, with Thomas Friedman (author of The World Is Flat) as the featured speaker.

An article in the Chronicle for Higher Education today elaborates on the Roosevelt Institution’s mission: to empower student activists to translate their ideas into policy through research and connecting with the policymakers. Quinn Wilhelmi is a Stanford undergraduate who co-founded and presides over the group, which bills itself as the first-ever student think tank. Wilhelmi says, “Politics asks us for our energy, but we are not often asked for our ideas…. Every college student has one of those ideas in four years.”

Awesome group, taking ideas and actually turning them them into real-world applications through the established policy-change channels. Read more from the Chronicle: Wonk This Way: The Roosevelt Institution seeks to spread students’ ideas, one policy brief at a time.