GoGreenInTheCity

The day had come when the efforts of all 50 of us since the past 6 months would be realized. I had never thought that a simple thought can be built into a complete business solution for a world leader in active energy management solutions, Schneider Electric.

It started in January, 2011; we received a mail for GoGreenInTheCity by Schneider Electric, another case study competition though with a difference. This time we had to give our own idea of how to conserve or preserve energy in our city. Such competitions have usually excited us and the incentive was too much to be ignored (the winners get a world tour). I think many people thought on the same lines as the 2 of us because more than 500 teams participated in the competition globally.

It was the most difficult to clear the first round with the amount of competition and with the best brains in the world. We sent our submission and named it “Green Walk”. The idea clicked; we were amongst the top 100 from the world to be selected. The feeling changed from a shock to happiness to excitement to exhilaration. We had always worked hard for any competition we had put our hands on; it finally bore fruit.

The stakes were high in round 2 but we also had a better chance of getting to round 3 with 25 teams from 100 to be selected. Our team was assigned a mentor from Schneider Electric, France office who later commented, “I had always been excited to listen to what you would have done next. I always looked forward to our weekly meetings and you always did more than what I expected.” She was the best mentor we would have ever got and the prime reason for giving a structure to our thoughts. Our 2^nd round submission was a 800 word document on the idea we had submitted in the 1^st round. We prepared this in the form of a story and the title read “The GreenWalk Journey”.

Our simplicity and creativity (as commented by our mentor) clicked yet again and we cleared round 2. It was time to pack our bags for PARIS!!! It was the best that could have happened to us and our preparations for 3^rd round couldn’t be less. It was big and coming this far we had to crack it now! We now had 2 mentors, one from France and the other from China. With their help we further built our idea taking into account the drawbacks and the strengths of our product, the different stakeholders involved, product competition, its benefit to the society and amount of energy generation through the product. We submitted our 15 minute presentation incorporating the details.

We arrived in Paris and the show started. Our presentations were scheduled on 23^rd June, 2011. The judges were impressed and we were able to answer all their questions. They liked our presentation and the detailed work that we had done. The afternoon attraction was the t-shirts we had designed and worn for the GreenWalk launch. There were clapping in the room when we presented them our t-shirts. It was overall a satisfactory presentation and the rest of the day went in networking with the other 48 event finalists.

24^th June, 2011: the day when the winners had to be announced. It started with internship interviews followed by workshops while we became more and more excited for the evening results. They started with announcing the winners and the first name was “The GreenWalk Journey”; we were announced the competition runners up. It was the best moment ever, congratulations poured in from all sides followed by an interview and photoshoot. Visiting Paris was a memorable journey in itself and the runners up position was like an icing on the cake. I will never forget the 6 months that we were on this project and the unforgettable experience in Paris. The competitions are still on and hopefully the trend continues!