E&E workshop - 24th July 2017
Workshop by Mr. Amol Chaphekar (MD, Strata Group), 24th June 17
‘State of Outdoor Air Pollution in India and Ways to mitigate it’
On 24th July 2017, a workshop was organized for MBA E&E (2016-18). The speaker for the workshop was Mr. Amol Chaphekar, MD of Strata Group who spoke on the topic “State of Outdoor Air Pollution in India and Ways to mitigate it”. He is a first generation serial entrepreneur and has founded and invested in more than 9 companies. Also he has 8 patents filed in his name and has been awarded as one of the top innovators of India in the year 2012.
Mr. Amol Chaphekar commenced the workshop with basics of environment during which he asked students to volunteer and list down the elements that pollute the air, water and land. Many pollutants came up during this activity such as Suspended particulate matter (SPM), Respiratory SPM, carbon-dioxide, etc. that pollutes air, industrial effluents, oil spills etc. in water and fertilizers, municipal waste in land. The idea of this activity was to identify the problems that are present in today’s scenario. Then, Mr Chaphekar gave presentation in which he first highlighted the problems proceeded by solutions and finally the opportunities in terms of business models that can be developed from the solutions to address the problem.
Initially he focused on water problems such as its health and availability. He said the solution to water’s health problem are STPs,WTPs and to tackle water’s availability is rain harvesting. Then, he explained measuring and monitoring is most important aspect for successful water harvesting practices. He also explained a business model in which the health of the water can be improved. In this business model, he gave this idea to target corporate employees wherein they would be asked to bring water sample from their housing society and this water quality information can be passed on to water softeners providers. Also, the customers (corporate employees) can be persuaded to buy water softeners by making them aware about the ill effects of hard water. After Water, he spoke on Air Pollution. Firstly, he gave facts about outdoor air pollution like 1.5 million deaths in India in 2015 and 90% of those deaths from low and middle income families. He also spoke about the various diseases that are caused due to air pollution such as stroke, heart diseases, lung cancer etc. He also talked about his technology that reduces air pollution and the business model he adopted to sell this technology. He said the technology would be installed at the client site at free of cost and also the maintenance cost of the technnology is borne by his company. The revenue is generated through advertisements by companies like JIO, Jai Hind etc. posted on these technology. As of today, the technology is installed at various public places like stations, bus stops and also at housing societies, big corporate offices. Finally the workshop concluded with discussion on various live projects that he could offer to the students.
In a nutshell, the workshop focused on the pollution problems faced today and what are the solutions available to mitigate it and most importantly the opportunities of developing business models from these solutions.
