By: Namish Modi (he/him)

In a small community affected by excessive forest fires, University of Waterloo co-op students are helping establish safer living and clean energy.

Nestled in the northern Himalayan region of Uttarakhand, India, Avani Bio Energy has found a way to convert destructive tinder into a renewable energy source. Pine needles, which fall and act as fast-burning material in severe blazes, are used to provide long-lasting clean energy for cooking and electricity in remote communities.

Waterloo students, who immerse themselves in remote villages during their terms, are hired to upgrade the systems that have been developed.

“The entire work of our organization is sustainability,” says co-founder of Avani, Rajnish Jain. “Students not only learn how to use resources, but also optimize them. I’m sure they learn all about that in the classroom as well, but here, they have an opportunity to practice it.”

This commitment to sustainability and co-op has led to Avani winning the first-ever Impact in Sustainability award as part of the Employer Impact Awards, presented by Co-operative and Experiential Education (CEE) at Waterloo.

An individual holding up dry hay

“The University of Waterloo is so proud of our partnership with sustainability-focused employers,” says Dean of Waterloo’s Faculty of Environment, Jean Andrey. “By working together and by empowering youth through experiential opportunities, we can achieve the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals.  Warm congratulations to Avani Bio Energy for leading the way.”

At Avani, 40 people live in a campus-style set-up which is adjacent to about 100 remote villages. Jain says one of the most important aspects of a work term is students immersing themselves in the community.

Recent mechanical Engineering graduates Andrew MacMillan and Jeffray Behr both value the unforgettable experiences at their work terms at Avani.

“The reason I chose Avani was that I saw a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit a region of the world I have never been to and never potentially envisioned seeing before,” MacMillan says. “I had the opportunity to work on a sustainable development project that had a huge social impact.”

During his time in India, MacMillan learned that sustainable energy could come in many forms and leaves a lot of opportunity for creativity.

“Before I went to Avani, for example, I never thought to take pine needles and burn them into fuel to produce electricity,” he says. “Not only did this work, but it simultaneously (helped) solve the problem of forest fire issues in the local communities.”

Behr says that Avani hires local women to collect the pine needles to help strengthen the economy in the region.

Avani provides opportunities for students to support the economy and biodiversity by establishing clean cooking fuel, exporting renewable energy to the grid and reducing carbon dioxide emission, aligning with nine of the Sustainable Development Goals. Meanwhile, students can develop critical thinking skills, intercultural effectiveness and agility by living in an area with limited tools and materials.

“The students that have been here have performed wonderfully,” Jain says. “They had very good community interaction despite the language barrier. A lot of the people here do not speak English at home, and students have been able to work with them.”

Jain goes on to say that the entire ecosystem is based on students involving themselves with the community, even adding that they spent days living with families in the villages.

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An unforgettable experience

“I would describe the work environment at Avani as very friendly and family-like,” MacMillan says.

One of the main things MacMillan took away from his work term was an appreciation for his own day-to-day life, like reliable access to electricity. There were several power and internet outages during his term.

“Those are the kinds of things I wasn’t accustomed to here, so I learned to really appreciate what we have here, and also it kind of reinforces that in my head, that in other regions, this is something that other people really lack, and they really need better access,” MacMillan says. Often, lightning storms, forest fires, or monsoons would affect power in the whole region, and it could last a few days.

“I’d say what I gained from Avani is just sort of how to be resourceful, there are a lot of things that were very scarce,” adds Behr. “If we wanted to get something that wasn’t available locally, there was usually a long lead time to get it from Delhi.”

Q and A with Avani’s Rajnish Jain

How do Waterloo co-op students make Avani Bio Energy more innovative or future-proof?

Our organization is working on a very innovative solution to generate electricity and cooking charcoal from pine needles. This Himalayan region has large tracts of pine forest where we have excessive forest fires during the summer months, when pine needles fall.

They're very dry, they catch fire very easily and destroy biodiversity. Our organization has come up with this unique solution of harnessing this destructive energy into usable energy (for) both electrical and cooking. The reason we approached University of Waterloo engineering students was to help us with improving our innovation is to upgrade the systems that we have developed. Some of the Waterloo students come up here running through engineering of our product in terms of making dryers and conveyor systems, which makes loading the raw material in the gasifier in the production systems easier.

Why does Avani come to Waterloo to hire co-op students?

I heard about the University of Waterloo co-op program, and I thought, well it’s a great opportunity for our organization to engage with these students who are just about to graduate or are in the process of graduation. It’s a great opportunity for everyone to work on for the ground for us and to give them an opportunity to apply what they’ve learned. I could see that the students were really motivated.

How does Avani enable co-op students to learn and develop their skills?

We are a grassroots organization, we just throw them in the pool to learn to swim, that’s honestly how it works. There is a lot of hand holding. As you know when the students come here, it is a completely different culture for them. A lot of students who come here (are) outside Canada or the American continent for the first time.

The students that have been here performed wonderfully. They had very good community interaction, despite the language barrier. A lot of the people here do not speak English at home, and students have been able to work with them.

Honestly, the biggest takeaway I would like (the students to have), and I am sure some of them are doing that, is that they should use their knowledge to solve the problems of the world. Not just to find good jobs or to make money, but actually solve the problems of the communities living in remote areas to have a better living to make this a better place, as we are doing that at Avani all the time.

What was something a Waterloo student has done for Avani that had a significant impact?

I’ll tell you two things that coop students have done for us. One is very generally you know when students come from across the globe to work with these rural communities, it enables the rural communities to start thinking, this is such a wonderful thing. “Can we do something?”

When students from across the globe are coming, we should also give our best, so that's one thing that happens by default when people come from so far away. We also have students not only from engineering stream but also from the environmental (stream). We have engaged with all sorts of students from the Waterloo co-op program to not only improve the engineering of technology, but also to study the impact of the technology on the rural communities, and the ecology of the region. I'm very happy to say that the students have done such a wonderful job of on both sides the engineering design, as well as the studying of ecological and socio-economic impact.

What does Avani aim to teach co-op students about sustainability?

The entire bulk of our organization is sustainability.

(The students learn) about how to use resources, but also optimize (them). I’m sure they learn about all that in the classroom as well but here, they have an opportunity to practice it. It’s not just that they are working on the programs that they’ve come here for. For example, either the engineering design or studying the ecological impact of the rural program, but it’s also community living that inspires them. They also go out and work on the farm in the mornings, from half an hour to an hour every day. What they are learning here is at the holistic level, and not just doing professional work.

How does Avani enable co-op students to serve and be more involved in the community?

We don't have to make a special effort to enable them, the entire ecosystem here is about that, because the communities have learned to work with diverse cultures since the inception of our organization. You'll be surprised to hear that some of the students have gone and spent days in the villages living with the families (Despite not knowing the local language).

(At Avani), we’re about 40 people living together on a five-acre campus but we work with about 100 villages around. That's our extended community, and students get an opportunity to be here, work with the community; the co-op community living here but also the entire extended community. They go into the villages, they go shopping and everywhere people, they are involved with people.

How do you think hands-on work will help Avani’s co-op students become engineers and scientists of the future?

We strongly believe that unless we do hands-on work, we can never understand the problems. In university, people learn to solve great problems of the world but in the process, we ignore really small things that need to be done. Hands-on work makes (students) empathetic towards the communities their problems and motivates them to solve those problems.

Waterloo Innovation Summit: Green Innovation

For more stories like this, join us at the next virtual on Waterloo Innovation Summit scheduled for November 30, where industry leaders will explore how green innovation and sustainable enterprises can drive economic growth while ensuring our planet’s future.