Celebrating 10 years of research and innovation in India
Hello everyone! I first want to reintroduce myself as Suchi Sanyal, a Lead Scientist in the Metallurgy Lab in Bangalore and a self-titled, “turbine therapist.” This week in Bangalore we will be celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the opening of our technology center. I will be helping to give you an inside look at the events in Bangalore this week on the blog, and by “taking over” the @EdisonsDesk Twitter account. Starting Monday I’ll be using @EdisonsDesk to show you what life as a researcher in Bangalore is all about! As well, I’ll be recapping the events celebrating 10 years and some of the technologies that have come out of India during that time.
As I look at the campus preparing for its decennial celebrations in the coming week, memories keep fleeting across in front of my eyes. GE India Technology Center was born in September 2000. I joined this wonder-world in March 2001, when the center was still in its formative stages, and so, in a way, we have grown together! From a 150+ scientist -pool in 2000, this center is now GE’s largest conglomeration of scientists and engineers, with 3800+ people worldwide.
Starting off with a core team for Plastics and Global Research, we now have representation of all major GE businesses including Water, Energy, Oil &Gas, Aviation, Transportation, Healthcare, Consumer & Industrial. I still remember the times when we had only one building and a small, cozy cafeteria, and now we have 7 magnificent buildings standing proudly upon a sprawling 50 acres. But what enthralls me the most as a technologist are the laboratories that have been built over the past decade with a lot of passion & hard-work: we now have a total lab space of over 4 acres. From a materials scientists’ paradise consisting of high-resolution electron microscopes, innumerable furnaces and test rigs to prepare, look at and test the materials we develop, there are “green labs” consisting of solar panels and wind turbines feeding into energy storage systems.
The collocation of Global Research and GE businesses in one campus helps us to learn more from each other by cross-collaboration: global research folks like me have the opportunities to share some advanced technical concepts/ methods with our colleagues working on products, while we benefit from the humbling experience of looking at how different exotic concepts need to work synergistically to eventually go into a revenue-generating product!
With so much being achieved, there is every reason to celebrate the by-gone decade with a lot of excitement & pride. Like me, I am sure every other colleague in this campus would walk the lawns with passion & emotions brimming & with an extra spring in their steps in the coming days. And, of course, a deep sense of belongingness. Stay tuned to hear more on our decennial celebrations in the coming week!
