Summer Internship with TERI, Bureau of Energy Efficiency, and ACARA Institute – Shashaank from TERI University
Daily Winner for: – 25th August 2011
Name of the intern: – Shashaank
Institute: – TERI University
Organizations interned with: – TERI, Bureau of energy efficiency and ACARA Institute
Studying Renewable Energy Engineering and Management at TERI University after working with SAIL was by choice and against all the opposition from the society. Ask me how tough it is to justify that quitting a PSU job for M.Tech is best suited for me. But it was because of my passion for doing something of my choice different from the regular trend, that I joined TERI. As like all we were supposed to go for two months of internship and so the search had started since mid-March. My interest in social entrepreneurship motivated me to participate in ACARA Challenge 2011 which is a competition in collaboration with University of Minnesota and we were declared winner on 23 rd May. Yo! The prize was a huge sum of money and a 20 days internship at Honeywell Bangalore with faculty from IIM Bangalore and UMN.
I already had confirmation from TERI and Bureau of Energy Efficiency by then, and I never wanted to refuse any offer .Then came the final calculation, Is it possible to manage all three this summer? Thanks to my planning ability, convincing capability and my commitment to deliver the best in stress too.
I reported to BEE first , it was a market survey project in collaboration with Australia on standby power consumption , it dint require daily reporting to BEE office. I was required to send data and updates on the project once a week. It involved lot of market survey with a special device to measure standby power consumption of the equipment. The experience – the best of the shops were not able to understand the standby power, and lot many of them refused to allow us to take reading with the fear that our power consumption reporting may create problems for them from the Ministry of Power or the brands they were dealing with. Interacting with the public was an interesting experience and taught me how to act in the public forums, team, how to make people understand, and how to be patient when things don’t go your way.
After getting flexible project from BEE which gave me liberty to work as per my time availability, I reported to TERI. I got the project on energy audit of cooling towers and pumps. This was related to my studies and it required lots of work both technical and mathematical . I informed the authorities that I will be able to work for 25 days only as I have won ACARA Challenge and will be leaving for Bangalore. They were a bit confused what I will do in 25 days but I promised to deliver the work before leaving for Bangalore. I took it as challenge to deliver 2 months worth work in 25 day time. I started doing it with all sincerity and was really slogging to maintain the balance with TERI and BEE. My leave application tto attend summer institute at Bangalore was granted at BEE also. It was on 25th May when I submitted my report to TERI .to their full surprise. Tthey wished me all the best for my Bangalore trip which was to start on 26th May.
I reached Bangalore on 26th May and the Summer Institute started with all the winning teams. Students from TERI, KJ Somaya, IIT Roorkee, Duke University , University of Minnesota , along with participants from Singapore , US made the batch of future leaders. The sessions were mix of both theory and practical assignments, addressed by the well-known figures in the industry .The faculty included Professor from University of Minnesota , Ashoka fellow, Quick Sand, Honeywell , ACARA founder. The course was designed to make the winners understand the different aspect of starting a social enterprise, the strategy and difficulties. It was a new kind of experience with learning from a diverse group of people . Five days of visit was also scheduled to KOPPAL a small district in Karnataka where a NGO is doing lots of thing for the society. It gave us a real time feel and helped us develop feeling for the underprivileged in society .On the final day we presented our business plan to the venture capitalists. The business plan was highly appreciated by the panel with a special comment from Dean IIM Bangalore saying ‘I want to work on this project; tell me how many of you are really interested’. Awesome was the feeling and it gave us lot of satisfaction. The summer institute was not only about the classes and guest faculty, it also involved parties & outings; fun both in the class and outside. It was a proper mix of everything and successfully delivered the purpose it was organized for.
I was working on the BEE projects side by side and was mostly involved in writing report and making presentations while my team at Delhi were collecting the data .On my return to Delhi, to my surprise I got confirmation from USAID to attend the Building Physics conference for 4 days from 21st to 24th July and I attended that too. Finally the BEE reports were submitted on 30th July which officially ended my Internship saga on a positive note. Feedback forms were collected, submitted and those long slogging hours were over, but the learnings of the summers are to be taken forward with same commitment towards better future.
I would like to thank all with whom I was associated during this summer for helping me learn and making all my internships YO Internships. In nut shell it was 2 months, 4 organizations, hours of slogging, tons of fun, and of course the best of the moments to cherish.
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