Acetech, Lighting Summit

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Acetech, Lighting Summit

Mumbai 4^thNovember 2011

Now that I have returned to Singapore I have finally some time to complete my blog on the Acetech event in Mumbai last Friday. It has been a hectic week and an even more hectic last few days. Thursday I flew from Goa to Mumbai, attended the Acetech welcome and awards night, on Friday we had the actual Lighting Summit in which I was a guest speaker and on which I report below, then on Saturday I flew in the early morning to Delhi to meet a client that had just appointed us for a new project for a kick off meeting and site visit, only to fly back overnight from Delhi back to Singapore. You will not be surprised I spent most of yesterday sleeping it out in bed!

After last year’s inaugural ACETECH Lighting Forum, this year’s conference program (part of the Architecture, Construction and Engineering Building Exhibition) was renamed the International Lighting Summit, like last year with a selected list of eminent international speakers and panellists. The format of each session (we had 8 in total) was a keynote address by an eminent speaker on a specific topic, followed by a panel discussion on the same topic. This year’s event was supported by the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) with its president Kathy Abernathy delivering the keynote address. A few speakers
from last year (Chip Israel, Praveen Thampi, Babu Shankar and myself) got a “recall”, while I like to think we were back by popular demand, I am not sure how the whole program was put together and on what criteria the subjects and speakers were selected. There is some room for improvement there I think. There was no call for papers to my knowledge other than a direct invitation to selected speakers. My presentation was titled ” 100% LED in interior spaces, is it possible” with a subtitle: “Towards zero energy and zero maintenance” and was based on a recent project case study. Judging from the feedback the presentation was much enjoyed by the participants.

The event was a full house, but somehow lacked the punch and excitement I felt at the inaugural event, but maybe that was because I had been there and done that last year 🙂 From the feedback however and the fact that the participants stayed in attendance till the very last speaker (we only finished around 7pm!), showed that the format, subjects, speakers and pannelists were a successful mix and most of all showed the importance attached to lighting and lighting design in this great emerging Indian market.

In Light Watch some mood pictures of the award night with celebrity presenters as MC’s, a dance performance in a balloons and the actual Lighting Summit event with opening ceremony (lighting of the lamp and blessing song and Chip Israel delivering his presentation.