IIT Hyderabad event highlights innovation challenges in energy sector

An industry-academia-startup meet at IIT Hyderabad explored challenges facing India’s energy sector. GAIL CMD Deepak Gupta called for a shift towards prescriptive maintenance, while other speakers highlighted technology, customer-centricity, experimentation and collaboration as key drivers of transformation and innovation.

Hyderabad: GAIL (India) Limited, Petronet LNG Limited, and MC² Foundation, in association with iTIC Incubator of IIT Hyderabad, organised ‘MC² Plus Ignite Hyderabad Connect’ at IIT Hyderabad.

GAIL CMD Deepak Gupta said India is at a “remarkable inflection point”, with rapidly growing energy requirements alongside its ambition to become a developed economy, ensure affordable and reliable energy, build globally competitive industries and meet its climate commitments. He said the industry must progress from preventive and predictive maintenance towards prescriptive maintenance, where technology can not only anticipate failures but also recommend appropriate interventions.

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Bank of Baroda former CMD Dr Anil K Khandelwal said a true transformation is never driven by a single initiative, but it is built through a culture of customer-centricity, technology, experimentation and continuous learning.

IIT Hyderabad Director Prof BS Murty said the MC² Plus initiative brings together industry, academia and the startup ecosystem around some of the most important challenges facing India’s energy sector.