The video stream for the talks given by Girish Sant and Dr. Rahul Walawalkar, as well as the talk on innovation by Prof. Dipankar (Treelabs.org), on 21st Jan 2012 can be viewed here:

Energy Talks Video Stream on KPoint

The IITB AA – Pune chapter networking event on the 21st Jan at Hotel Pride, with presentations on Energy, was a success. This is more so because the speakers and topic had to be changed at the last minute. There were about 90 attendees of whom about 15 were alumni from other IIT’s. The Executive committee would like to thank the attendees for their keen participation.

There were 2 talks on Energy by Girish Sant & Dr Rahul Walawalkar. Girish spoke on energy security- the social, environmental and equity issues. A lot of alumni evinced interest in his work & were seeking ways to work with him. Rahul talked about the challenges of creating a smart grid. The unpredictability of output of renewable energy sources such as wind & solar need sophisticated load management techniques.

There was an ad hoc presentation on innovations that was received extremely well. Prof. Dipankar of IIT Bombay introduced TreeLabs- an ‘inventions factory’ (www.treelabs.org). He wowed the audience with his demos of a hand-held (!!!) arc welding machine & a low energy consuming lamp that does not heat up like CFL technologies and is cost-effective as well!

In closure, Shirish Potnis gave a brief report on the activities of the alumni association.