Engineering Post in conversation with Engr. Mohammad Asif Siddiqui
Engr. Mohammad Asif Siddiqui Chief Executive at Sigma Ventures (Pvt) Ltd, an engineering graduate of 1969, from Aligarh Muslim University, who has tonnes of experience and has been working in the field of engineering for more than five decades had an exclusive conversation with Engineering Post regarding the future of engineering in the world. During his career as a leader of his company, after 1978, has executed projects in almost every field of Electrical Engineering. Electrification of Industries, building EHT Grid Stations, laying distribution and transmission lines, building Telecom Switching Centers, Data Centers, building Solar Systems are just a few of them.
He had some very interesting views about the upcoming trends in electrical field and its impact on the future of the world. “When I was doing my Masters in 1976, we were studying solar energy but at that time the efficiency of solar panels was around 3 percent and it was not considered commercially viable. They were thought to be used only by NASA and other projects where there was no other option. But with time the technology grew exponentially and now the solar panels have efficiency of more than 22 percent,” he said. Combined with the development in the field of Electrical Vehicle, it has paved way for another unprecedented necessity which is the need for efficient storage of electricity.
Engr Asif Siddiqui suggested that though internet & social media has already revolutionised our lives, once we develop an efficient enough method of storing that energy and reusing it, it will lead to a significant change in how we spend our lives. Once we develop a system of efficiently storing energy and seamlessly reusing it again this will potentially lead to a complete revamping of our mind-sets about necessities. We know that Electric Vehicles would become a norm in the future. Next would be driverless cars. With them around you can start working as if in you are in your office as soon as you sit in one, since you are not driving anymore. “If you can live away from cities and be just as comfortable as within city, people would start abandoning crowded places and start living peacefully in suburbs and may be even off grid,” he said. “Just carry sufficient electricity home like Gas Cylinders for a month and live happily. A wild imagination.”
“The Universe works on the principle of Harmonic Motion based on sinusoidal wave. All the heavenly bodies move accordingly. Everything which reaches its maximum in a cycle must come to zero and everything which is low must get to its highest level. Even human life follows it. You are born, grow up, get strong and then you are growing old and pass through exactly same phases in reverse until you die. That is what we might be looking at potentially in the future regarding different nations of world. All the communities and nations follow the same harmonic motion. They may have different amplitudes and frequencies but follow the same rule of going up and down with time. Countries like China, Pakistan, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Iran and many countries of South America and Africa, were down in bottom. Now is their time to come up and be leaders while America and Europe who had been leading the world might be on the down slide according to their amplitudes and frequencies. You might call it wishful thinking but I know it is Pakistan’s time to go up”.
Whatever may happen but one thing is certain that the world has to end its dependence on the fossil fuel and move to renewable energy. That is our future.” he explained.
One has to admit this theory has a lot of weight, its merit as it really is what we could be looking at potentially in the next few years. There is much to be said about this might result in for us as Humans, but one thing is for sure, we will be looking at a very different world from now within the next 10-15 years.
