Drumil Joshi: Young innovator powering India’s green future with AI‑driven energy and water solutions

Its a changemaker series usually features athletes and politicians. On 12 August 2023 we sat down with Drumil Joshi, a third‑semester M.S. Data Science student at Indiana University Bloomington. During his Bachelor in Electronics & Telecommunication at Dwarkadas J. Sanghvi College of Engineering (DJSCE) he built the energy‑forecasting and water‑management systems. At 21 he has authored peer‑reviewed papers and built live platforms that could transform India’s infrastructure and save millions of rupees.

Professor Dr. Sunil Karamchandani from DJSCE’s Department of Electronics & Telecommunication notes that Joshi’s integration of IoT sensing, cloud computing and machine learning sets a benchmark for socially relevant engineering and proves that undergraduates can tackle national challenges.

Q&A: Engineering a sustainable tomorrow

On building a real‑time renewable‑energy forecasting tool

You’ve developed a supervised machine‑learning model that forecasts wind and solar generation across Europe and India. What makes your approach special?

Drumil Joshi: “Renewable power is inherently variable. Using live API data from ENTSO‑E (Europe’s power‑grid operator) and Indian utilities, we train multiple regression models and select the one with the lowest error. Through careful feature engineering and time‑series techniques, we achieved Symmetric Mean Absolute Percentage Error (SMAPE) between 1 and 2 % accuracy that lets operators plan schedules ahead and reduce reliance on coal. We’ve built a Streamlit interface so anyone can run forecasts in the browser.”

On designing an AI‑powered smart water management system

Interviewer: Your second major project tackles water scarcity. How does it work?

Drumil Joshi: “Water misuse often goes unnoticed because consumers don’t see real‑time data. Our Innovative Smart Water Management system places IoT sensors (ESP32 microcontrollers, level sensors and solenoid valves) on domestic pipelines to measure flow and send data to the cloud. We built a 30 000‑entry dataset split 70/30 for training and testing and compared linear, tree‑based and SVM models. Cross‑validation revealed that gradient boosting with about 800 estimators achieved the lowest RMSE. After training, a SARIMAX time‑series model predicts the next ten days of consumption. A simple app created on MIT App Inventor alerts households to leaks and fosters conservation. This combination of IoT sensing, data processing and model tuning makes our system robust and practical.”

On being in the top 1 % of young innovators

Interviewer: Many call you part of the top 1 % of innovators in India’s engineering colleges. Where does that assessment come from?

Drumil Joshi: “It’s humbling. People use this tag because our projects combine original technical solutions with clear social benefits. The renewable‑energy and smart‑water papers were published in respected journals and address energy security and water conservation. I’ve presented at hackathons and mentor peers, but there’s still a long way to go I want research to feel accessible to more students.”

On the benefits for India and global prospects

Interviewer: How can your innovations benefit India, and do you see global applications?

Drumil Joshi: “India faces dual crises: unreliable electricity and water scarcity. Our forecasts help grid operators schedule power and integrate more renewables, while the water system enables municipal bodies to monitor consumption and detect leaks. We’re collaborating with researchers in the United States and Europe to apply our models globally through open‑source, locally customizable platforms.”

On balancing graduate studies, research and outreach

Interviewer: You’re starting Semester 3 of your Master of Science in Data Science at Indiana University Bloomington. How do you juggle graduate coursework, ongoing research and mentoring back in India?

Drumil Joshi: “It’s definitely challenging. On campus I dive into courses on deep learning and statistical inference, and outside class I refine our renewable‑energy and water models. I stay connected with mentors and juniors at DJSCE via online sessions, helping them build on our open‑source code. The synergy between my master’s coursework and the applied work I started in Mumbai gives me new tools to scale these solutions.”

Conclusion

Our discussion with Drumil Joshi pushes that tradition into the climate‑tech realm. At 22 he’s not just earning degrees; he is engineering practical solutions to India’s energy and water crises. If adopted widely, his open‑source models could make India a global leader in sustainable technology and inspire a generation to blend research with social impact.