April 3 ambassador event
H.E. Mrs. Reenat Sandhu, the Ambassador of India to the Kingdom of the Netherlands visited TU Delft and joined our April 2023 India on campus event. The event brought together students and researchers iinvolved in India-TU Delft collaborations to exchange and learn more about current TU Delft-India endeavors.
TU Delft University Ambassador India, Prof. dr. Jenny Dankelman opened the event by sharing information on our large Indian student and researcher community – with almost 100 Indian staff members, over 750 MSc and BSc students and 200 PhD candidates, our on-going joint seed fund calls with Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, and our planned Rectorate-level delegation to India planned in fall 2023.
H.E. Mrs. Reenat Sandhu then elaborated on the strength of Indo-Dutch ties and indicated how India and Dutch have complementary strengths to address major on societal challenges, such as climate, energy, and water. She highlighted India’s current chairing of the G20 and the important Indian student and staff presence at TU Delft .
Dr. Abhigyan Singh presented on how findings from his research on emerging energy systems in rural India are contributing to his current research in the Netherlands. In Bihar and Chhattisgarh, India, he explored what would happen if villagers had complete control of renewable energy kiosks and the freedom to structure returns as they desired, and the insights gained have informed the the design and development of a high-tech energy innovation platform in Amsterdam South East, the Local Inclusive Future Energy City Platform (LIFE) project. He strongly believes that bi-directional learning pathways between India and the Netherlands will be mutually beneficial.
Dr. Saket Pande discussed the collaboration with Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham University on a joint Amrita-TUD Center for Water Research. Given India’s growing population but small fresh water resources and lack of access to safe drinking water, the need for joint cooperation on water issues is clear, and the TU Delft researchers are keen to join in research at Amrita’s Live-in-LabsⓇ. The collaboration will include a joint doctoral program on water systems, water treatment and technology adoption with pairs of PhDs jointly supervised by TU Delft/Amrita staff. The first two PhD pairs will study “hanging/vertical gardens for water reclamation” and “Community wide adoption of Jivamritam water purification system.”
Dr. Taneha Bacchin shared information on the international symposium on integrated water management that the Indo-Dutch consortium project Water 4 Change organized in February 2023 in New Delhi, Bhopal, Bhuj and Kozhikode. The symposium’s series of workshops on pathways and experiments towards water sensitivity brought together stakeholders from the case-study cities of Bhuj, Bhopal, and Kozhikode and project partners to further elaborate transdisciplinary cross-sector Water Sensitive Design Framework (WSDF). These WSDF and its COMPASS tool are envisioned to become a common approach in Indian secondary cities, accessible to all levels of practitioners, capable of guiding transitions in any secondary city in terms of water sensitivity through four lenses of society, built-environment, technology, and governance and their dynamic and ever-changing interrelations.
Attendees then heard a series of short pitches for several grantees of the 2022 joint collaboration seed fund calls with IIT-Delhi and IISc Bangalore. Prof. Marjan Popov introduced his collaboration with IISc on the Protection of Renewable Dominated Power Systems. He will soon travel to India for a joint workshop, and he and his collaborator dr. Sarjay Das have already obtained some EU-funding for follow-up activities with a post-doc. Dr. Hans Goosens shared how collaboration between TU Delft and IIT-D on the Lunar Zebro project will help to improve the rover design by investigation new materials for a lighter rover and help to detect water density in lunar sub-surface. Dr. Ivan Langella & dr. Anh Khoa Doan explained how their collaboration with IISc on Detection of flashback in hydrogen combustion towards decarbonization contributes to the move towards hydrogen-powered clean aviation. Using complementary expertise simulations for big data, anomaly detection and deep reinforcement learning, the two groups are working to develop AI-driven prevention of flashback.
The event continued with a discussion led by the Indian Students Association on challenges Indian students face in the Netherlands and ended with a borrel at the Vakenwerkhuis. The next India on-campus event will be held in fall 2023. Stay tuned for more details.
