Akshat Jiwan Sharma

Following the European Space Agency  Council at Ministerial Level (CM25) meeting in November last year, which delivered a record-breaking €22.1 billion in commitments from Member States , the ESA organised an event to recap the outcomes of that meeting and set the tone for exciting developments 2026.  CM25 was historic for several reasons. Setting aside the huge €22.1B [1] of commitment it successfully transitioned ESA from being a purely civilian agency to one that would be actively supporting European security and non-aggressive defense capabilities [2,3].  Josef Aschbacher, ESA Director General and Géraldine Naja, Director of Commercialisation, Industry and Competitiveness highlighted that the purpose of CM25 was to make the EU more competitive in space endeavours. Towards that end the Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite(IRIS 2) was strengthened by committing €383 million towards it and marking it as a cornerstone of the European ...

8 Jan 2026 I thank the New York Energy Forum for organising a discussion on how  AI is   Shaping the Global Future. Dr. Carolyn Kissane,Associate Dean of New York University’s Center   for Global Affairs and Director of NYU’s SPS Energy, Climate Justice, and Sustainability Lab , Mr.  Douglas Giuffre Executive Director and Head of Americas Power & Renewables  at S&P Global Energy, Mr Michael Pearce ,Chief US Economist at Oxford Economics presented their thoughts on implications of AI on geopolitics, energy and economics respectively. The session was moderated by Mr. Atul Arya, Senior Vice President and Chief Energy Strategist at S&P Global. AI continues to create headlines and draw passionate responses from experts in technology, governance and public policy. As with any new technology there are concerns around job security,the cost of operation and even on its effect on climate change . Some of these concerns are simply anxiety while others...

9 Jan 2026 An year ago, in 2025, Bharat Climate Forum was established to position India as a leader in cleantech manufacturing enabling the nation to become self reliant in green technologies, as it steadily progresses towards the goal of net zero emissions by 2070, while keeping in mind the nation's ambition of achieving a fully developed status with a $10 Trillion Economy by 2047.  The challenge is ,as noted by several thought leaders on the stage and in the roundtable discussions, that India needs to set a global precedent of developing while using green technologies. This has not been achieved before. The industrial revolution in the European nations and in the USA was powered by fossil fuels.     Even today both EU and USA are significant Green house gas(GHG) emitters.  In 2023, EU27 fossil fuel-related GHG emissions totaled about 3.22 billion tonnes CO2 eq  US energy-related CO2 emissions stood at around 6 billion metric tons India's curre...

9 Dec 2025  At the global boardroom organised by the financial times I got the opportunity to learn from decision makers & understand their approach to deal with a world that is facing constant disruption and where economic policy, geopolitics, technology, energy, and leadership are increasingly intertwined.  FT brought in a diverse set of speakers: Christine Lagarde — President, European Central Bank,Akash Palkhiwala —COO, Qualcomm,Eimear Bonner — CFO, Chevron Corporation,Janet Henry — Global Chief Economist, HSBC, Izabella Teixeira — Member, International Advisory Board & Former Brazilian Environment Minister ,Antti Häkkänen — Minister of Defence, Finland , Oana-Silvia Țoiu — Minister of Foreign Affairs, Romania, Lesley O’Connor — Founder & Executive Chair, SupergridEurope among others to speak on themes spanning economics, geopolitics, technology, energy, and governance.  Today in this interconnected world the decisions that one nation takes ...

At the 11th edition of India economic conclave I had the pleasure of listening to luminaries like Minister Nirmala Sitharaman,Dr Gita Gopinath, famed entrepreneur Sridhar Vembu and several other leaders in the business world. It was a very humbling experience for me to be present in the midst of inspiring personalities who are painstakingly pushing India to become a $10 Trillion economy and a fully developed nation by 2047.  The overarching theme of the event was navigating geoeconomics. It is no secret that like many other developing nations India's economy is heavily dependent upon the US. President Trump's decision to put America first has not gone well with several nations who have accused him of implementing policies that threaten to destabilize the world economy,in their opinion. Many have pointed out that the USA is violating all rules of trade that it established in the first place.  There is some truth to that argument. But it fails to answer the most bas...

I thank society for information display, India chapter, for organizing a series of high impact events throughout the year. Today the members gathered for one final time in 2025 looking back at the year and planning for what's to come ahead.  SID India has largely succeeded in building global connections and positioning India to manufacture display tech in the future. On lab scale promising results for OLED technologies have already been obtained and things are looking bright with regards to an actual display fab.  Many challenges were identified as potential roadblocks and among them workforce development was critical. Training people to be able to operate sophisticated machines in a fab is no easy task especially when the industrial presence is minimal making it a chicken and egg problem. However the enthusiastic response of students & their willingness to learn new technologies infused optimism among the members.  At events organised by SID I had the opp...