A compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) saves energy but is designed so poorly that just one won’t light up an entire room. So when 24-year-old software engineer Arnab Roy and his friends created a new-generation light-emitting diode (LED) tube that would solve this shortcoming, it became the winning idea at The Times of India and Garnier’s Take Care Take Charge (TCTC) initiative 2011.
On Friday, a panel of judges, consisting of professor D Narasimhan from Madras Christian College, P Shanmugam, joint director, Central Leather Research Institute, Sundararajan, former principal chief conservator of forests, and actor Prashanth, selected Roy as the winner from Chennai. He will present his idea, along with five other winners from across the country, to the government and the National Innovation Foundation at the second edition of the TCTC initiative. A panel of environmental experts will pick the national winner, who will present his idea at the United Nations Environment Programme’s TUNZA Asia-Pacific Youth Conference.
Apart from Roy, there were 10 others who presented their ideas on Friday. “These 11 were filtered from the 130 ideas we received from across Tamil Nadu,” said N Ramjee of Centre for Environment Education, TCTC’s knowledge partner. Ideas started pouring in since the campaign started on World Environment Day on June 5.
Roy wants to increase the usage of LED tubes to bring down energy wastage caused by traditional incandescent lamps. Other participants pitched ideas on how to conserve water, create green spaces and popularize energy-efficient transportation solutions.
Engineering student Shankar Mohanan said energy can be created during a gym workout, while Gururag Kalanidhi talked about how a new type of transportation can be created combining the principles of roller-skating and conveyor belts.
Viswanathan N emphasised the possibilities of hydrogen as a fuel, while Ananda Gopalan focused on tapping solar energy to create green buildings. Battery-operated vans from D Raja Narasimhan, a geo-thermal heating system to cool houses from Rajkumar M, a green fuel card to ration fuel consumption from A Saravanan, swift re-charging of electric cars from Rethin Silvester and low-cost sewage treatment from Vaishnavi Jayaraman were other ideas that caught the judges’ eyes.
