00:00At this rate, if we go to any research, one field is not sufficient, one field is not sufficient.
00:06Convergence is happening in different fields.
00:09The idea of this conference is that we call experts to different fields.
00:14Our students, our researchers, get the opportunity to interact with them
00:18so that they can benefit from inter-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary research.
00:23South Africa, France and Japan have come from foreign delegates.
00:26In addition, there are 35 speakers,
00:30who are the Northwet University of the Center for Space Research.
00:36We are talking about the space research,
00:37we are talking about the material science,
00:39we are talking about the solar energy,
00:42we are talking about the new materials.
00:44There are different fields of experts,
00:46who are coming here.
00:48We are talking about mutual interaction.
00:51We are talking about collaboration.
00:52We are talking about collaboration.
00:54We are talking about collaboration.
00:57I am working on cosmology,
00:58theoretical cosmology,
00:59which is basically about the study of the universe
01:01and what the evolution looks like.
01:04I have had a chat with some of the students already,
01:07and there are such opportunities.
01:09I was giving them my own students,
01:11who happens to be from here,
01:13and he is now studying with me, completing his PhD.
01:15And the way this works was through collaborations,
01:19and they share their research interests
01:21to relevant professors in South Africa,
01:26where I come from.
01:27And if there is funding,
01:29they will tell them that, you know,
01:31they are welcome to come and study with us.
01:33So there are such opportunities,
01:34and I have had a good interaction
01:36with some of the potential students.
01:37So basically, that's the research that I do,
01:42solar thermal devices on a small scale,
01:44mostly for the rural communities,
01:47in order to address SDG7,
01:49which is clean and affordable energy.
01:51The experience that I am witnessing
01:53in the conference is good.
01:55There are a lot of good presentations.
01:58I think this energy, if it's available,
02:00the best way to attract students
02:03is to have prototypes.
02:06Have what you call community engagement.
02:08Go to the people who need it.
02:10Show that it works.
02:12If you just watch a video,
02:13or if you just see a presentation,
02:16that's not the way to go.
02:17I have experience.
02:18You go there, show them.
02:20Tell them that this is your gadget.
02:22Treat this gadget like a car,
02:24and, you know, use it like that.
02:26You know, when your car breaks down,
02:28you always have to find a way how to fix it,
02:31and you treat it like a baby.
02:34I'm working on solar dryers,
02:35which means that you use the solar energy
02:38to dry your food,
02:39so that you can maintain it much longer.
02:43But unfortunately, I'm from Europe, in Belgium,
02:45and we don't have much sunlight.
02:47So what we do is we develop the models at home,
02:50and then we come here to build the real setups
02:53so that we can see, okay,
02:55does the model corresponds to the predictions we do.
02:58Because if we would do this in Belgium,
03:00we would not be able to dry.
03:01Here in Rajasthan,
03:02they have very much experimental experience.
03:05But we, from the Europe side,
03:07we have a lot of modeling experience,
03:08so we could combine both,
03:09so that one plus one becomes three.
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