Education Minister P.K. Abdu Rabb has said that Kerala was the ideal choice as location for energy conservation projects and for testing renewable energy sources, the use of which was on the increase in the State.
Inaugurating an international conference on ‘Green Technologies’, organised jointly by the Mar Baselios College of Engineering and Technology; University of Dayton, USA; and the India chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Mr. Rabb said there was a need of increased focus, research and development on reducing greenhouse emissions. Newer technologies had to evolve and governments should pursue policies that stressed on low carbon emissions, he said.
Earlier, Auxiliary Bishop of Thiruvananthapuram of the Syro Malankara Catholic Church Samuel Mar Irenios lit the lamp to signal the start of the conference in the presence of IEEE Kerala vice-president R. Srinivasan, Director of Technical Education J. Latha, College principal T.M. George, Dean (R&D) Sakuntala S. Pillai and others.
A platform for talks
The three-day conference aims at providing a forum for discussing innovative energy conserving designs in the backdrop of climate change and the rising need for a global green technological transformation within a short timeframe.
There will be technical programmes, panel discussions and tutorials as well with the sessions categorised into five tracks – Green Energy; Green Electron Devices and Green Communication; Green Computing and IT; Green Buildings; and Green Mechanical Systems.
The resource persons and speakers for the conference include R. Unnikrishnan, Dean, California State University; Guru Subramanyan, Chairperson and professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Dayton; Chem Nayar, emeritus professor, Electrical and Renewable Energy Engineering, Curtin University, Perth, Australia; Surendra M. Gupta from the Northeastern University, Boston; and Achuthsankar S. Nair, Director, Centre for Bioinformatics, University of Kerala, among others.
There will be a panel discussion on energy management from 3.30 p.m. on Thursday, followed by the valedictory function.