Processing the Passion.

Last Saturday I delivered a lecture on ‘The Art of Process Design and Engineering’ at a Tech Fest organized by the Chemical Engineering students of Thadomal Shahani Engineering College, Bandra. While conluding the nearly three hour long talk, I enumerated the following minimum essential skills required of a good Process Engineer

• Understanding Chemistry
• Knowledge of Fluids and Materials
• Grasping the Principles of Flow
• Loads of Commonsense
• Feel for Numbers

Nanotechnology has clearly caught the fancy of young chemical engineers. Out of the 9 papers presented at the technical session, that I had the opportunity to judge, 4 were on Nanotechnology. Students used eye-catching visuals and made their presentations very confidently. But sadly the depth was lacking. Perhaps we should have debates rather than conventional presentations, in order to foster creative reasoning.

The excitement at the fest was however very palpable. The passion with which the students participated is encouraging for the future of Indian Chemical Engineering.