IIT students to brainstorm on energy solutions

Students of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) will participate in Energy Technologies Vision 2035, an initiative by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India and give suggestions and ideas for new energy solutions that the country could adopt in future.

The Energy Technologies Vision 2035 has been initiated by the DST's Technology and Information Forecasting Assessment Council (TIFAC) and the IITians have also been asked to garner suggestions and ideas from students across the country.

TIFAC had organised a similar exercise in 1990 while preparing the vision statement for 2020 under APJ Abdul Kalam. This year the initiative is being organised with a view to draft the Technology Vision 2035 under TIFAC chairman Anil Kakodkar.

To get comprehensive insights on the issue, advisory committees comprising expert groups have been formed to cover 12 segments. These are educational technologies, energy technologies, environment, food and agriculture, information and communication technologies, health care, habitat, global challenges, infrastructure, transportation, water technologies and manufacturing.

However, this is the first time that current students have also been given an opportunity to give their ideas and suggestions.

Prof Rangan Banerjee, dean of Research and Development at IIT B is the chairman of the Energy Technologies advisory committee. "TIFAC and the energy technologies advisory committee suggested to DST to have a parallel running students' initiative, which will be instrumental in collecting suggestions and innovative ideas from youths across over the country and also prepare a report about the trends in the energy needs of our country. The proposal got officially approved," said Banerjee. He added, "While there are panels of experts who will be giving inputs towards framing the vision statement, the inputs from the students will be instrumental in streamlining the same. The students have been given a free hand in deciding the mode of collecting data and preparing the report thereafter."

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