Nearly 120 students from over 16 colleges constituting 40 teams have registered themselves to participate in ‘The Solar Lamp Workshop’ that is to be held in SRM Easwari Engineering College, Chennai on Friday organised by IEEE, Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (SIGHT) and The Solarillion Initiative, which is a not-for-profit initiative aimed at reaching solar education to one million students in five years.

The workshop will teach students the basics of solar energy and electronics, circuit design, making solar lamps and solar panel testing. The workshop will see participation of students from institutions such as Vellore Institue of Technology (VIT), Sathyabama University, BSA Abdur Rahan University, KCG College of Engineering, Jeppiar Engineering College, Velammal Engineering College, Arunai Engineering College among others.

The workshop will be followed by a competition. The teams participating in the workshop will then be given two weeks to further work on the design aspects and develop the model, after which they will have to submit the final version of their solar lamps for the "Solar Lamp Design Contest."

The workshop-cum-competition event is being organised jointly by IEEE, SIGHT and Solarillion. The involvement of such a well-known scientific organisation as IEEE as a technical partner has enhanced the prestige of the event, as is evident by the overwhelming response.

Solar energy has garnered a lot of attention in recent times with the launch of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission and more recently the Tamil Nadu State solar policy.

The government has said recently that Renewable Energy sector over last three years has created more than 50,000 jobs and IEEE SIGHT and Solarillion would like to engage in capacity building and skill development at the undergraduate college level to prepare students take up engineering positions in this emerging field.

ramesh.m@thehindu.co.in 

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