Scientist Vishnu Prassad Conferred with Times 40 under 40 – 2022
On 30th June 2022, Times 40 under 40 award function was organized at Westin, Gurgaon wherein the Actor Sonu Sood conferred the award to the young forty individuals in various fields.
Mr. R Vishnu Prassad, Founder & Chief Scientist in Charge at Vishnu Prasad Research Centre was also being conferred with Times 40 under 40.
Vishnu has started his journey with CSIR and later started his own research centre as a single person and now has 19 departments with 45+ scientists working with him and eminent professors from reputed institutions across the globe are on his advisory board.
Speaking to Vishnu, he said “Sustainability is the key and we find solutions only to the problems that have been at least faced by a minimum of billion users. Our ancestors and grandparents has given us clean water to drink, fresh air to breath and pure soil to cultivate food. It is also our responsibility to give the same to our future generations.”
When asked about which of his invention is close to heart, he said “everything is close to his heart and that is what drives him. The biodegradable plastics has a special place as it changes the way we live and the scale of sustainability is very large when implemented across nations.”
Asking more about the properties of his biodegradable plastics, he said “the existing plastic waste takes hundreds of years to degrade. For example, the toothbrush we use takes around 500+ years to degrade. The biodegradable plastics we make are the ones that degrade in 8 months to 12 months. This is the best alternative to the existing single-use plastics and to the regular use plastics.”
The 19 departments at his research centre are Aerospace, Defence, IIoT, Robotics, Agriculture, Water, Waste Recycling, Solar, Transportation, Construction, Consumer Electronics, Fuels & Energy, Material Sciences, Bio-Medical & Genetics, Meditech, Software, Sustainability tech like pollution towers, ocean cleaners and virtual reality.
When asked about which all inventions of his that he consider as the need of the hour especially in India, he said “2 of his Centre’s inventions are the actual need of the hour and they are effective too. First is the Wet Waste Recycling wherein the biological process of VPRC converts the wet waste into high-grade fertilizer in less than 7 days and the second is the water purification system wherein the system is alternate to the existing STP’s and is the best method to be implemented to clean lakes, ponds, reservoirs and even large bodies like flowing rivers”.
Speaking about his future plans on research, he said “we are on building a large scale research ecosystem in Tamilnadu in the next 2 years with the state of the art facilities for the futuristic research and development. We are also now planning to tie-up with the schools and colleges to incorporate innovation chapters wherein the creativity and habit of triggering the ability to think beyond and out of the box process happens. A special curriculum and teaching methods are being designed for the same”.
Asking about the future of India and the career way forward to the Indian students, he said “We are patenting our inventions globally and the process of setting up manufacturing plants are being based out in India and in the future India is going to be a diversified manufacturing hub of the world. So, being associated with the stream related to the manufacturing is the future”.