Interview with Arun George, Founder CEO, Avant Garde Innovations

 "Clean Energy for a Clean Planet: 'The answer my friend is blowing in the wind'," says the website of Avant Garde Innovations, a Kerala based startup focused on low-cost rooftop wind energy installations. They made news last year with their viral marketing ploy comparing investing in their installation which would give a lifetime supply of electricity to the cost of an iphone. 

Awaiting their game-changing innovations to our power crises, I was privileged to pose some questions to their Founder CEO, Arun George and was impressed with the startup. Here are some insights offered:

 

Q. Could you explain about your main focus areas and the inspiration behind your idea.

Arun George (AG): Necessity doesn't need inspiration - I would say its the pressing factor of our present day global necessity for affordable clean energy, rather than inspiration, that made us explore opportunities to harness clean energy from nature. This is all the more aggravated by the perils of climate change which we can't just wish away unless we take urgent sustainable measures to tackle this problem. We looked at various existing solutions and realized that wind energy isn't widely adopted at residential levels yet, although its widely available in most regions, and thus decided to develop a solution that taps this widely available clean natural resource.

Small Wind Turbine (c)Avant Garde Innovations

 

We are keen to integrate bamboo on not just the Small Wind Turbine but also looking at options for Bamboo towers.

Q: Is your technology Indian? Or are you importing any parts. - 

 

AG: 100% Make in India. 100% Startup India.

So make note of it those who want to encourage and adopt India technology and Indian innovation.

Q: Could you explain your company's French connection :) and a little about your talk at Viva Technology Paris 2017

AG:  Our company name 'Avant Garde' is a French origin name which means Pioneering.

Interestingly, we also have the largest demand for our product and dealership requests coming from France within all of Europe. There is also a great lot of interest from French artists, film makers, environmentalists, students etc to join hands with our company Avant Garde in various interesting ways. 

At the Viva Technology Paris event where I was invited to speak on our project, we were approached by various French companies including a prominent French Electricity company for collaboration.

Q: Do you have any installations in Chennai/TN? 

AG:  There is a very high demand for our product from all over Tamil Nadu, as the rest of the country, and installations there will begin soon after our upcoming official launch.

Q: Have you installed the system in any home till now and is it addressing all of a home's power requirements.  

AG: We have done two pilot installations in Trivandrum which have demonstrated that it can meet the targeted power consumption for those buildings.

Thank you Arun George, here's wishing you and your team at Avant Garde Innovations a successful launch and great success in pioneering clean energy supply.