BENGALURU: Students of the Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences got a rare chance to interact with one of the world’s most popular personalities, Dr Bertrand Piccard, the man behind ‘Solar impulse’ the worlds first solar powered aircraft. Dr Piccard, who is also a psychiatrist by profession, spoke to the students as part of the ‘Prestigious Lecture Series’ and delivered an inspiring talk listing out the challenges he had to face before gaining worldwide fame for ‘Solar Impulse’.
“When we designed a plastic model of the plane and took it to engineers, they scoffed at the design and termed it impossible,” he said.The plane with a 72-metre long wingspan was the idea of Piccard and André Borschberg who worked on the project together. It was eventually built with the assistance of a firm that specialised in ship building. “Don’t wait for everyone to support you before you start. Remember that no one will support you for free,” Piccard said to an audience full of students.
Piccard is in India in order to identify startups that can protect the environment in a sustainable manner. “We will offer matchmaking assistance and the first 1000 solutions identified by us globally will be given free mentoring,” he said.