Last week, I had the opportunity to meet a wide range of youngsters from all over India (Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and of course Chennai) who were keen on joining EAI – in industry research, marketing and finance. Many of them had some kind of acquaintance with renewable energy, and I thought it’s a good opportunity to put down and analyze the perspectives of these folks.
The first thing that impressed me most about these youngsters was their enthusiasm for renewable energy. It is fairly clear to me that the current crop of students and those who had recently finished their college have realized that renewable energy is one of the most interesting and exciting career and business opportunity of their lifetime.
The second thing that impressed me was the extent of knowledge many of them had about renewable energy. True, a couple of them had an educational background related to energy, but even when this is factored in, their range of knowledge about renewable energy was impressive.
The third and probably the most impressive thing for me was that these folks were willing to sacrifice a few important things in order to be a part of this industry. When I told them that EAI is a small company and would not be able to pay on scales that their current companies (most of which were multinationals) could, almost all of them were willing to consider working for significantly lower salaries.
The fourth aspect I found interesting was the diverse backgrounds of people who were interested to be part of the renewable energy industry. This naturally had some usual suspects (software engineers and other engineering disciplines), but also included more exotic (in this context) backgrounds such as socio-economics, law and music/arts. It appears that the cleantech fever has caught on with today’s youth, and I am very happy about THAT.
