Dr. Chetan Singh Solanki, a globally renowned expert in the field of Solar Energy. He is currently on a Solar Yatra across the country for 11 years in order to increase awareness around energy conservation and promoting the use of solar energy. A special solar bus is going to be his home for almost a decade.
Prof. Chetan Singh Solanki is an educator, researcher, innovator and happiness program teacher of Art of Living, who is currently on unpaid leave from IIT Bombay. He has undertaken Energy Swaraj Yatra from Nov. 2020 through a solar bus for 11 years, until 2030. In this yatra, Prof. Solanki has pledged not to go home until 11 years and stay in the solar yatra bus. In the wake of serious and catastrophic climate change, this Energy Swaraj Yatra is designed with the purpose to create a public movement towards adoption of 100% solar energy.
Prime Minister Modi has also praised his yatra through a personal letter. He has been honored with the Brand Ambassador of Solar Energy by Government of Madhya Pradesh. Prof. Solanki has also been referred to as “Solar Man of India” by Times of India, The Hindu and India Today. Some people also call him “Solar Gandhi.” Following Gandhian ideals, he has coined the word ‘Energy Swaraj’ and to establish Energy Swaraj globally he has founded the Energy Swaraj Foundation (ESF).
Prof. Solanki has led major solar projects at IIT Bombay. Through his Solar Urja through Localization for Sustainability (SoULS) project he has reached 7.5 million families providing them clean light. There are several awards to his credit, these awards includes IEEE’s global grand prize of US100,000$, Prime Minister’s innovation award for SoULS project, first prize in Solar Chulha Design Challenge by ONGC, three Guinness World Record, two Young Scientist awards, CSIR Science and Technology award, top 15 must follow thought leaders by LinkedIn, ‘Hero of the environment’ by Network18 media, Excellence in RE Skilling, “Outstanding Green Activist” and many more. He has also been invited to be G20 delegate and for talk at global corporations like Google, Shell, Intel, BlackRock and the like.
He is the Chairman of the committee of CBSE and AICTE for solar curriculum development and member of National Focus Group on Environmental Education. Prof. Solanki has written eight books and published over 100 research papers internationally. He has four US patents to his credit.
During 2019 Prof. Solanki traveled across the world covering 30 countries to spread the message of solar energy. In his ongoing Energy Swaraj Yatra he has already traveled more than 40000 kms reaching to over 1,75,000 people. The 11 years yatra is expected to cover travel across the country 4 to 5 times. The yatra aims to bring energy literacy to over 100 crore and encourage over 1 crore families to switch 100% on solar energy.
Prof. Solanki has described in his book “Energy Swaraj – my Experiments with SOLAR Truth” that adoption of Energy Swaraj or energy independence should become a public movement. His Energy Swaraj Yatra is sowing the seeds for this movement so that we all can create a better and beautiful world.
Read the full story that first appeared in Global Indian here:
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