Student Activites

HVAC & R Industry has been making strides on all fronts in the recent years. It is slowly becoming a haven for engineering students from multiple disciplines to opt for it as their first career option. With diverse areas of interest like The Green Movement, Building Automation, Energy Management, Sustainable Design & Development, Alternative Technologies and System Integrations along with the more traditional areas like manufacturing, research, sales, marketing & projects the HVAC & R Industry offers a variety of choices within itself. To capitalize on this growing interest and to offer the students a platform to get an insight into this fascinating industry ISHRAE has been promoting its Students Chapters in the various Engineering Colleges all over the country. The response was equally encouraging from the academia to open its doors for our society creating a forum for Industry and Institution Interface (III)

Any Industry's prolonged sustenance comes from its capacity to both attract and retain the best manpower available in the market. The student chapters opened by ISHRAE nationally is a major step forward in that direction to sustain our Air-Conditioning & Refrigeration Industry. The Industry Institution Interface is made possible in all these student chapters by a variety of activities that are promoted towards this cause. Some of the key activities the Student chapters engage in are listed below:

Technochill

It is a Combo Student Event initiated by the Pune Chapter, now adopted nationally. It is a one day or a two day event with multiple objectives bringing the HVAC & R fraternity, and the Student Community together. Generally a series of events are organized for all the Student Chapter members ranging from Inter Collegiate Quiz Competitions, Paper Competition among the students, Project Ideas Competitions, Projects to be displayed at ISHRAE's Annual ACREX Exhibition, Guest Lectures from who's who in the HVACR Industry, Seminar Lectures by Professionals on current topics of interest to students, Panel Discussions by HVACR professionals, Job Opportunities and Placement Interviews with AC & R Companies, Summer Training Selections and many more. Plenty of Cash awards and prizes are in the offing generally sponsored from the industry. Some of the key objectives realized through the Technochill Program are listed below:

• To expose and attract a maximum no of students to a variety of career opportunities in the HVACR sector.
  
• To convince and create interest in students that HVACR offered great career opportunities.
  
• To showcase successful HVACR professionals to the students enabling students to spot where these opportunities were.
  
• To enable students actually get Job Opportunities or summer training options.
  
• To offer an innovative platform for students & HVACR professionals to interact.
  
• To offer students better return on their ISHRAE membership fees paid.
  
• To get maximum no. of students involved in the HVACR industry through ISHRAE.
  
• To offer all these options to the faculty advisors and the academia thus bringing the Industry and Institution closer.
  
• To introduce students / faculty / Employers to ISHRAE Institute of Excellence for pursing a variety of short term HVACR courses.
  
• To provide a sustainable model for servicing and expanding the student chapter members that are in existence and to attract the formation of more student chapters.

Industrial Visits

As the saying goes, 'Seeing is Believing', Industrial visits are a great experience for the students to get away from their theoretical world of understanding and have a real experience of seeing and feeling the many products and components that they learn in their AC&R subjects. Students from one chapter or a few chapters combine together to plan a day visit to a few places of interest that will expose them to the actual reality of HVACR products and systems, designed, erected and operating in actual sites. Taken around by their faculty advisors from the academia and practicing professionals from the ISHRAE community, Industrial visits often leaving a lasting impression on the student minds about what they learn in classes with just their imagination.

Apart from visits to Commercial Establishments, many industrial visits take students to manufacturing industries and research establishments like food & pharmaceutical segments where Air Conditioning Systems play a vital role in the manufacturing process of these products.

Industrial visits are often combined with a lot of fun activities during the trip making it both a pleasurable and meaningful visit giving room for both learning and growing as a team.

Revolving Funds: Corporate sponsorship for the Students Projects/Scholarships

K-12 Initiatives: Teaching school children to take tender steps towards a greener world

National Quiz: An annual event to test AC &R Knowledge among students

Emerson Online Education

Web portal for online education on AC&R

ISHRAE and Emerson Climate Technologies (India) Ltd, signed an MoU at Techfest Goa, on 31st August, 2008 to jointly promote Online University in India. This is a unique training program developed by Emerson over the years, consisting of theoretical and practical material covering both air conditioning and refrigeration system design.

After publicising the tie-up by way of advertising in the 'Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Journal' as well as on Emerson's home page, demonstrating the use to 20 Chennai students on 18-10-2008 and in SRM University, Chennai on 25-2-2009 to 440 students, there has been a marked increase in the number of registered users since August 2008 from 217 to 557, with the maximum numbers in the South (274), followed by West (175) and North (65).

For a detailed report on Emerson Online University, click here.

National IAQ Survey: A National survey on Indoor Air Quality by students

Energy Audit on existing commercial buildings for Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) by Student Members of ISHRAE

Student Chapters added till date

West has been in the fore front of Student Activities for long, Mumbai and Pune being the main contributors. Quiz Competitions for Students, Technochill - A combo event interfacing the Industry and Institutions have been contributions from here. This is amply seen in the distribution of the chapter in the figure above with, west having totally 35 Chapters as on date and growing. South has 25 chapters as on date, North with 7 chapters and East with 3 chapters. Significant to note among these chapters are the three chapters in Architectural Schools, one each in Ahmedabad, Delhi and Chennai. There is an all Girls Student Chapter in Nagpur. The single largest student chapter consisting of 127 student members is in Chennai.

Some of the key benefits that the Student Community gains for an annual membership fee of Rs 350/-are as follows:

1. Access to technical seminars and major events organized by ISHRAE.
   
2. Regular technical seminars and programs on AC&R Subjects at their college premises by experts from the HVAC (Heating Ventilation & Air-Conditioning) industry
   
3. Receipt of periodic ISHRAE journals to all Student members at subsidized rates.
   
4. One-on-one interaction and exposure for the Students with who's who in the HVAC industry during these events.
   
5. Access to Scholarships and Sponsors from Corporate
   
6. Participation in National Events and Surveys enhancing their visibility and employability
   
7. Easy access to Fundamental and Basic courses organized by IIE (ISHRAE Institute of Excellence) which increases the employability of students.
   
8. Soft skills training to further increase employability and overall development of Students.
   
9. Last but not the least placement opportunities in the HVAC industry.

While we have a long way to go in consolidating these efforts and providing further benefits to the students we are confident that we have started in the right direction. The role of the Faculty Advisor in each of these institutions and the mentors from each chapter from the ISHRAE fraternity have key role in anchoring this initiative to greater heights. We are positive and have even bigger dreams to make the core industry once again a bastion for the students.

Exclusive Website for Student members (Under preparation)