Back in January I embarked on a trip to the geographical center of India - Nagpur, Maharashtra - to attend the 1st India International Energy Summit (IIES, www.iies.in). What's the significance of the center? Four yatras, or journeys, of renewable energy demonstrations in biodiesel-powered vehicles hit major cities, population centers, and energy installations on more or less cardinally-oriented paths toward Nagpur, culminating in the summit that was hosted by the Visveswarya National Institute of Technology.
Sounds grand, eh? I thought so too. But - even after completely ignoring the appalling host of logistical ball drops, absences of information, and a complete lack of discipline in the conference proceedings - this summit held no resemblance to a serious talk about India's role in energy management and global impacts. It was largely a forum for VNIT students and professors to give talks about their work, which by all means is a necessary and useful activity, but the constant thought nagging me was the extreme lack of innovation, purpose, and vision. The keynote speeches were lackluster; efforts to coordinate disparate projects toward more holistic and practical solutions were rare. I must say that even the quality of the research was nothing to sneeze at. Despite making a conscious attempt to decouple content from presentation skills and speaker composure, it was glaringly obvious that, on an international scale, nothing new was going on there.
Still, it's the first one. I get that there are bugs to work out. I hope to see more in the future, but with a much larger contingent of international work. This is not intended to be a giant whiny complaint; rather, I'd just honestly like to see an effort that lives up to the scope of an international energy summit. Some things were positive: I didn't see the yatras personally, but they seemed successful. While walking around the tents of the commercial energy expo, I was delighted to see undergrad engineering students embarking on an ambitious exercise in renewable energy and embedded automation - they were building a small scale model of a single axis solar panel tracking system. It was great to hear their enthusiasm, and when it became clear to them that I have experience in this area, they earnestly asked for advice. That was super fun. Being called "sir" was weird, but hell, in comparison, I'm getting up there.
They put together an "energy sustainable" model of a rural village, replete with solar lighting installations and energy-efficient machinery. It was a bit hokey, I have to admit, but a nice idea nontheless:
But but BUT. There was this one guy demonstrating a "clean stove" that just boiled my blood (no pun intended). I get annoyed and personally offended just thinking about it! That anger will manifest as a proper hand-waving eye-bulging mouth-foaming blog rant in the near future.
Sounds grand, eh? I thought so too. But - even after completely ignoring the appalling host of logistical ball drops, absences of information, and a complete lack of discipline in the conference proceedings - this summit held no resemblance to a serious talk about India's role in energy management and global impacts. It was largely a forum for VNIT students and professors to give talks about their work, which by all means is a necessary and useful activity, but the constant thought nagging me was the extreme lack of innovation, purpose, and vision. The keynote speeches were lackluster; efforts to coordinate disparate projects toward more holistic and practical solutions were rare. I must say that even the quality of the research was nothing to sneeze at. Despite making a conscious attempt to decouple content from presentation skills and speaker composure, it was glaringly obvious that, on an international scale, nothing new was going on there.
Still, it's the first one. I get that there are bugs to work out. I hope to see more in the future, but with a much larger contingent of international work. This is not intended to be a giant whiny complaint; rather, I'd just honestly like to see an effort that lives up to the scope of an international energy summit. Some things were positive: I didn't see the yatras personally, but they seemed successful. While walking around the tents of the commercial energy expo, I was delighted to see undergrad engineering students embarking on an ambitious exercise in renewable energy and embedded automation - they were building a small scale model of a single axis solar panel tracking system. It was great to hear their enthusiasm, and when it became clear to them that I have experience in this area, they earnestly asked for advice. That was super fun. Being called "sir" was weird, but hell, in comparison, I'm getting up there.
They put together an "energy sustainable" model of a rural village, replete with solar lighting installations and energy-efficient machinery. It was a bit hokey, I have to admit, but a nice idea nontheless:
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| Check out that cool nonchalance, that subtle swagger! This, my friends, is how one should pose in front of a mock solar village: pure eshtyle. |
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