Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (JS)

Mangaluru, Oct 04: Indian society for technical education (ISTE), St Joseph Engineering College (SJEC) students' chapter was inaugurated here at SJEC, Vamanjoor, on Tuesday October 4.

Guest speakers Myriam Shankar Krafft, co-founder, Solid Waste Management Round Table  (SWMRT) Bengaluru and Wolfram Thurm, product designer, Bauhaus University in Weimar, Dresden, Germany formally inaugurated the programme by lighting the ceremonial lamp along with other dignitaries on the dais.

Addressing the gathering, the director of the college, Fr Joseph J Lobo said, "We are inaugurating ISTE students' chapter, and the theme that we have is - challenges of solid waste management in India and opportunities for the young engineering students. Our chief guest will invite you, inspire you to transform our places into better living abode. Lord has created this beautiful universe and I don't think there was any form of pollution when it was created."

"God has created this universe for you and me so that we can live our lives joyfully. But our selfishness today has created this global scenario. If we go on like this, our future generation one day will definitely curse us. May the inspirational talk by the speakers invite us to transform the God-given beautiful world as a real beautiful world. Good luck, all the best to ISTE."

Myriam Shankar Krafft thanked everyone for the warm welcome said, "I feel honored to be with you. I feel blessed that we found young students to work with us in finding some solutions for waste management. It is about the whole planet whatever problems we have on the planet concern us all. So we need to find solutions."

Wolfram Thurm said, "I feel honoured to be here. This is my second visit and I thank you for the warm welcome. I hope to have many more visits ahead."

Principal of the college Dr Joseph Gonsalves said, "The garbage is piled up at the dump yard . Why do we not process it? Our speakers will talk about the solution to for the solid waste and the possibility of the waste being segregated at the source, processed and converted into manure."

Following the inauguration, a talk on 'Challenges of Municipal Solid Wastes in India: Opportunities for the Young Engineering Community' was given by the guest speakers.

Entrepreneur Robinson Furtado, student coordinator of ISTE, Noel Shiri, student coordinators of ISTE Loy Fernandes, Vion Martis, Khalid Mohd Zulqurnain and others were present at the occasion.