Dr. K R Sridhar

 

Date: 1st March, 9:30 PM IST (Saturday)

 

Recognized by Fortune Magazine, where he was cited as one of the top five futurists who are inventing tomorrow, today, this young man is the principal co-founder and CEO of Bloom Energy. He was also the team leader of the task force which developed technologies to sustain life on Mars. This multi faceted man is none other than K R Sridhar. 

Sridhar received his Bachelors Degree in Mechanical Engineering with Honors from the University of Madras, Regional Engineering College, Trichy, as well as his M.S. in Nuclear engineering and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Bloom Energy (formerly known as Ion America) is developing a fuel cell that could kick-start the distributed-energy industry. Sridhar's idea is to create energy where it is consumed in a cost-effective manner. As he says,

                "There does not need to be a conflict between the conscience and the wallet."

Here is a man who is undaunted by challenges, no matter how unsurmountable they may appear. His plan is to generate energy locally through the use of solid-oxide fuel cells - a concept that people have been fiddling around with since the 19th century but that is now becoming practical with advances in the ceramics needed to build them. In addition, his vital role in developing a device for NASA to turn carbon dioxide into oxygen on Mars spearheaded the expedition to develop technologies to sustain life there.

With strategic alliances with venture capitalists KPCB, which has among many other notables, people of the stature of Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore- a man widely regarded as an authority on green energy and US Statesman Colin Powell, here is a person the world watches on with bated breath.

Catch him live here via video-conference, during Pragyan, and be amongst the first to know.