CHENNAI: Communication, logistics and transport — listing these as the backbone to any disaster management effort, speakers drew parallels between how disaster preparedness stems from a proactive attitude and climate change, at a conference conducted by Jeppiaar Engineering College on Wednesday.
The college’s second international conference ‘Pratiyog Iconstem’ on science, tech, engineering and management took the theme ‘global warming and disaster management’ this year.
“It is important to know that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had batted for environment protection at the Paris Climate Summit last year,” said Eric Miller, director of World Story Telling Institute.
He mentioned that the PM said that “Climate change, global warming are issues to discuss” and drew attention to industries that consume fossil fuels, as India has a large renewable target to meet. “Sporadic incidents like floods across the globe are part of a larger narrative which we must be cognizant about,” he said.
The director of National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology, V Krishnamurthy, urged students to begin with their own habits and usage.
“E-waste segregation is very important to us, especially because we use so many gadgets and smart phones over a period of time,” he said, pointing to the detrimental contribution it has towards the environment on a large scale. “We need to efficiently dispose them off so that their components are reused and the scrap leftover is also saved from dumping.”
The college, which hosted more speakers who shared their insights, also inked three MoUs with NIELIT, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) and Standard of Excellence in Education Development (SEED) to expand its industry constitute network and enhance research.