KOZHIKODE: For Varun Sridharan, the 27-year old techie from Vadakara, it was a dream come true to be with the youth from five major emerging world powers , sharing ideas and building professional network when he attended the first ever BRICS Youth Summit at Kazan in Russia earlier this month. BRICS is the association of five major emerging national economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Varun, represented the entrepreneurial community of India under the scientific and technological cooperation group of Indian Delegation. He is the director of Greenvironment Innovation and Marketing India (P) Ltd, an environmental engineering company incubated at IIT Madras.
“My company is focused towards providing innovative and cost-effective technologies for efficient water, waste water and solid waste management solutions based on sustainability principles. Probably that would be the main reason the Ministry selected me for the summit,” believes Varun, a B.Tech graduate from Hindustan College of Engineering.
Sharing his experiences at the summit, Varun said that the grand welcome at Kazan Railway Station and visit to Innopolis Special Economic Zone, the first smart city in Russia were unforgettable events in his life.
“The delegates from all the BRICS nations together had a lot of fun and memorable moments. We made good friends and networked for future collaborations. Visit to the incubation centre at Kazan was a good experience to understand the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Russia. The Summit helped us to understand the fact that all the countries are looking for mutual co-operation from other nation in the respective field of their strength. While India needs Russian help in Rail-way development, Russians are looking for brilliant IT minds to set up start-up companies,” he added.
“Science & Technical cooperation group of BRICS nations had working sessions which was very informative. Most of the inputs from India were included in the final action plan. I personally gained a lot of confidence through the discussions and was successful in incorporating the views of young entrepreneurs,” said Varun.
A total of 49 delegates from different sectors inc-luding science and technology, politics, health represented India at the summit.
