Air Quality Matters
Air Quality Matters inside our buildings and out.
This Podcast is about Indoor Air Quality, Outdoor Air Quality, Ventilation, and Health in our homes, workplaces, and education settings.
And we already have many of the tools we need to make a difference.
The conversations we have and how we share this knowledge is the key to our success.
We speak with the leaders at the heart of this sector about them and their work, innovation and where this is all going.
Air quality is the single most significant environmental risk we face to our health and wellbeing, and its impacts on us, our friends, our families, and society are profound.
From housing to the workplace, education to healthcare, the quality of the air we breathe matters.
Air Quality Matters
Air Quality Matters
#82 - Vinod Kumar Sekar: From Healthcare to Hyderabad: Hosting ISIAC 2025
Microbiologist Vinod Kumar Sikar shares his journey of bridging the gap between microbiology and engineering to improve indoor air quality, particularly in healthcare settings throughout India. He explains how the Healthy Buildings Conference coming to Hyderabad this August will foster multidisciplinary collaboration and knowledge-sharing essential for solving complex indoor environmental challenges.
• Fine dust particles in India serve as vehicles for microorganisms, particularly fungal spores, creating unique indoor air quality challenges
• Western building standards cannot be directly applied to Indian conditions due to different climatic zones, building construction methods, and microbial ecology
• The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the critical need for multidisciplinary collaboration between engineers, medical professionals, and scientists
• Decontamination through methods like hydrogen peroxide is often more effective than filtration alone, as filters can accumulate living microorganisms
• The ISIAC Healthy Buildings 2025 Conference in Hyderabad will feature oral presentations, workshops, keynote speakers, and special sessions for students
• An Indian chapter of ISIAC will be launched during the conference to continue building networks and sharing knowledge after the event
• India's healthcare sector is growing rapidly with over 55,000 hospitals, creating significant demand for indoor air quality expertise
Register for the ISIAC Healthy Buildings Conference 2025 in Hyderabad, India (August 18-22) at healthybuildings2025.org before July 31st to secure your spot at this landmark event bringing together global and local experts in indoor environmental quality.
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Welcome back to Air Quality Matters. We already have the tools and knowledge we need to make a difference to the quality of the air we breathe in our built environment. The conversations we have and how we share what we know is the key to our success. Kumar Sikar, director at Air Indoor Assessments PVT Ltd and President of the Organising Committee for the ISIAC Healthy Building Conference 2025 in India. This August, some of the world's leading experts in indoor air quality will be gathering with local experts, academia, industry and students at the Healthy Buildings Conference in Hyderabad, india. Air Quality Matters will be there to capture some of the conversation and more besides.
Simon:I couldn't wait to sit down with Vinod to talk about the upcoming conference and what to expect, but not just that to find out about his perspective on the sector, his work in microbiology and health, and much more besides. The podcast is a great window in what to expect in Hyderabad, the challenge and reward of bringing this community together for a landmark event, and how he sees his sector flourishing over the next few years ahead. India is an exciting place and this episode reflects the optimism from India and the region more widely. Don't forget to check out the sponsors in the show notes and at airqualitymattersnet. This is a conversation with Vinod Kumar Sikar. You were saying a minute ago that you were that we should talk a little bit about journey, of how you got ISIAC to India at the Healthy Buildings Conference. It'd be a good time to ask you now whether you think that was a good idea, with all the work you're doing at the moment.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Yes, yes, it's important. People don't know you.
Simon:Yeah, yeah, no absolutely, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. I mean one of the challenges and I often think this with a country like India is that I guess there's this inherent challenge in getting coherence between things like policy and research and industry coming together across a country as large as India. I'm fascinated in what your perspectives are on that because you know, being within it and working across such a large part of India as you do, I guess you experience that day to day, even in your work, never mind, bringing something like the Healthy Buildings Conference together Like this is a big challenge. A big country brings with it a big challenge, doesn't it?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:yeah, it's a big challenge, but uh what? I'm basically a microbiologist, I may. My core working area is health care. So when I started working on controlling airborne microorganisms, I bound to learn a lot of engineering aspects, even though I'm very poor at maths, but still I tend to learn a lot of engineering aspects. And then I realized microorganism is not only for microbiologists or only for medicine people. It needs multi-disciplinary people. Involvement to control, you know, because it's present everywhere. People involvement to control, you know, because it's present everywhere.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:That's where my interest went towards learning more on engineering aspects of engineering control in terms of filtration, aerosol, microbial control. And then I went on meeting a lot of new people other than healthcare sector and started gaining a lot of knowledge. Then then I realized the problem is not only in healthcare. The problem is similar in other areas like pharmaceutical industry, large commercial buildings, it buildings, even at home.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:So that's where I felt we need to have a multidisciplinary program or collaboration or a platform wherein every kind of people means the people with multiple knowledge or different sector knowledge can come together and create one single solution. For example, if ASHRAE makes a standard for healthcare, the standards are made by mostly by engineers, but at the end of the day, in the healthcare the decision maker is an MBBS doctor, so that's where people with a wide sectoral knowledge it's important to take a call decision how to make an indoor. It can be a house, it can be school, it can be a take-home center, anything. So that's where I feel it's a need. We need to have a multidisciplinary event program or a platform for people to collaborate and get some better ideas out.
Simon:Yeah, absolutely, and we'll come on to the IZIAC Healthy Buildings Conference a little bit later, because I think that's a natural conclusion of that thought process. It's interesting, you know what you described. There is a conversation we seem to be having globally at the moment and that's this recognition of a requirement for an interdisciplinarysection of science and engineering to be brought to bear to solve some of these challenges. Is that something you're getting a sense is happening in India as well, that there's a recognition now that this isn't just policy or it isn't just engineering, that this is a complex problem that requires a lot of stakeholders around the table?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:In my personal opinion, around 2009-10, when swine flu came, so people understood the importance of hygiene. And then when COVID came, people understood it's very important to have multidisciplinary people to control future pandemic or to have a healthy indoor. So now the awareness and the need for multidisciplinary people to join together, it's growing and people have started accepting and I could see even on infection control committee a lot of engineers are part. So it's growing and it's quite promising and I'm sure the future is going to be people who is familiar with their expected subject. They would be involved to do their expected work.
Simon:It's not that somebody will do all the work, so it's really good to see that we are progressing now yeah, I I think the I think what we've seen across sectors is there's been an interesting challenge trying to understand each other's language. Often you know that we're trying to bridge a gap, to understand how engineers see a particular sector, or bridge a gap to see how the medical profession sees the sector, and the classic example was COVID, that there was real barriers to understanding what was meant by something as simple as, or what we thought was as simple as, an airborne nature of something. I guess you've seen similar conversations happening around these tables.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Yeah, it's well said. The COVID really taught us a lot. Most of the time if, for example I'm giving a lot of healthcare examples because I'm from that background If a doctor is making a hospital or a bone marrow transplant or any particular room, if an engineer says that I need certain capacity of HU or the number of filters, doctor may not understand sometimes. So to reduce the cost, they will ask the engineers to reduce the capacity of the HU or the duct size or the filter. So there we are compromising with the science. So the engineer may not be able to convince that it's required as per the standards.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:The doctor realizes after, when he started operating the particular room he realizes that there are some internal contaminations due to improper circulation or ventilation of air. So now doctors started understanding. If an engineer says they know what to do in a healthcare sector, they started understanding. They know what to do in a healthcare sector, they started understanding. Likewise, during COVID the engineers had their own thought process on how to control this particular COVID virus. They all tried different methods but it took time for both the sectors to come to a single line, that how to control. By then it is delayed by six months or seven months. So COVID really taught everyone that the solution cannot be made by a single export. It should be multi-disciplinary exports and it should be in a single line, so people should play their respective role to have a good indoor.
Simon:A bit to ask, actually, because it's something I thought of the other day and it shows my lack of understanding of how the nuts and bolts of this work in India. Are there national standards to things like HVAC and building control and regulations, or are there quite large regional variances, because you've got a massive difference in in weather across india, for example? You know like there are huge differences in in climate? Um, so what one thing is not gonna suit all areas? How does it work in india on the ground is, is it a bit like the united states where each state will have varying kind of standards for meeting kind of building standards, or are there kind of central governing bodies that kind of oversee the lot?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Yeah, we do have the national standard. It is a national standard, it is not region wise. So that's where my core research, where I mainly work with different kind of hospitals located in seven different climatic conditions in India. So we conduct the same tests in all these regions at the same time with the similar parameters. Because, as having said that India has got the seven different weather conditions, you cannot have a same standard to get some results. For example, at this moment the temperature in Kashmir, the temperature in Kerala is different, the human behavior, the microbial flora, the outdoor conditions, all are different, so we cannot have one standard to follow across India. Most of the time, in my experience, what I've seen, people try to achieve the standard by overdoing or by sub doing certain parameters. More than 90% of the time we are unable to achieve the standard in the given parameters. I can give an example for a bone marrow transplant room, the prescribed or the suggested pressure difference is 2.5 pascals In India. Some hospital using 12 pascals, somebody is using 4, somebody is using even 6, because most of the time the Indian buildings are not airtight buildings and that does not fit to the western standards which mostly copied by the indian standards. So now.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Things are progressing. A lot of research is happening, a lot of data. We have now a lot of indian standards are being tailor-made based on the indian weather conditions and I'm sure probably in the coming years it could be even region-wise. The standards can be implemented. I could hear from some renowned people. There are fair chances. The standard would say what to achieve and how to achieve it will depend on the particular building in charge. They should know better how to achieve the results. Rather than giving them the full procedure, they are going to simply say what should be the result and let them decide how they should achieve the particular parameter. So I'm sure that we will have our own Indian data-based standard. That too, region-wise.
Simon:That must be quite encouraging because it reflects much more deeply the breadth and spectrum of different types of building typologies, age, quality of stock, regional differences. It moves it much more towards a kind of a performance-based outcome rather than a prescriptive kind of you know, thou shalt achieve four pascals difference between one room and another. You can reflect in a much more nuanced and sophisticated way the building that you're presented with.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:I guess Exactly See, here the problem is different. We have different microbial conditions across India. The microorganism which is a threat for Western countries it is not a threat for the Indian conditions, and in Western countries you don't have fine dust particles. In India we have got a lot of fine dust particles, so where there's dust, automatically the spread of microorganisms spreads. At the end of the day, we are doing all these parameters, all the exercise to control microorganisms to have a healthy human being, so the microorganisms which is predominantly available in North may not be available in South or in East. It differs and so the standard should also differ. That's my personal opinion, right, as we have dust here, so our methodology of controlling organisms should be different compared to the western countries. So that's a reason it's very important to have region-wise the standards we should, based on the data collected from the particular region. You can call it, or it depends on the weather conditions yeah, it's interesting what you say about dust.
Simon:Is that because microorganisms attach to dust, so that you're providing a unique transport mechanism that may not exist so prolifically in other countries? Or is it just the associated illnesses and issues with dust on top of the microorganisms? What is it about dust in particular? Because I think it's fairly well understood that PM2.5 and microfin dust particles are a challenge in India, and particularly in certain regions at certain times of the year because of climatic conditions, but does that actually present a microbiological challenge as well in some of the spaces you're trying to manage?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Yeah, in my experience of working with more than 15 years, when there is a renovation in a healthcare sector, automatically the microbial load will be high. So during renovation we found most of the time the aspergillus microorganisms levels are pretty high because of the available fine dust. Under innovation you cannot control the dust moving from one place to another place. So in one of my study we found the dust level plays a major role in transporting organisms from one place to another place. Where there is a less dust movement, we are seeing less microorganisms. Where there is a high level of dust, we are seeing high level of microorganisms, mainly fungus.
Simon:Really interesting. Yeah, it's amazing what rabbit holes you end up going down in these conversations, but that's a really interesting point to pick up on. So a lot of this isn't kind of virus and bacteria related. This is mould spores and those kind of things. So is it likely that during renovation, basically there's existing moulds, because mould exists everywhere, that's just the nature of buildings, but what we're effectively doing is disturbing large amounts of it in renovation. Disturbing large amounts of it in renovation. So then you're seeing that impact downstream, that we're spreading these, these mold spores and things as part of the renovation. Is that kind of what you're saying?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:see, uh, the spores, mainly the fungal spores.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:They're opportunity opportunist yeah when there is an opportunity, they become, become active right. So if you have an immunocompromised or even a little bit ill health human being and if the level of spores are pretty high, they automatically attract infection much faster. So Indians are habitual, born, brought up and grown up in a dusty condition. So but again, same time when I'm not well, even I'm having immunocompromised situation, or if I'm having a respiratory infection, the particle does play a major role. That's the reason. Now all the critical areas are now utmost clean. They follow almost iso class 6 standards in terms of indoor air quality in critical areas and it's important to control the dust, even at home.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:If we have too much of dusty at home. I've seen a lot of houses where, with poor cleaning or de-dusting, the fungal load are pretty high in indoor. In one of my tests, the house which is having a carpet sofa and not well cleaned by a wet wiping it, just by dusting, we have seen the fungal load is much high and also the VOC level, because when you have fungal automatically the VOC level increases. So you start getting eye irritation, nose irritation and the place is literally you can't stay for a pretty long. And one of my study says we have compared two different rooms one with high level of dust, one with almost no dust, and after 10 days or 15 days of closed closed the entire chamber, we found the fun, fungal and VOC level is far higher in the room with high dust and much, much lesser fungal and VOC load with almost no dust. I do this study mainly because I work with, most of the time with immunocompromised patients, so it's very important to provide them as much as possible clean indoor environment yeah, interesting, and and that extends into the residential sector, I guess even part of what you're talking about.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:There has there been much work, including the corporate offices where they have a 200 people working in a single floor, having a carpet, having a cushion chip based chair and also having a green plants wherein they'll be watering the plants every day, and there's a soil and there is not much ventilated or not much amount of fresh air added. The level of spores are pretty high in such scenarios. Yeah, so that's the reason I myself suggest people not to have plants in closed air conditioned rooms, because you hardly have any fresh air and you have no option to dilute the spolens or the microbial load which is generated from the wet soil of the plant.
Simon:I remember talking to Priyanka Kulthretta on this show, well over a year ago now, and a very small part of our conversation. We were talking about damp and mould and she was saying you know, one of the challenges, particularly in the tropics of India, is the rainy season and the buildings just get so saturated just because the sheer volume of water that you know if when it rains heavily enough, water will find weaknesses in the building, so inevitably you end up with saturated surfaces and in those scenarios then you create conditions for mold growth. So it's, she says, it's almost like setting the clock. You know, once the rainy season starts you're almost waiting for the the mold to start appearing. Yeah, that's interesting. So it's amazing that that mold is such a universal challenge in buildings that we often see this as a cold weather climate issue in warm, damp buildings in winter.
Simon:But this is equally a problem in places like India and it sounds like because we know this from COVID as well that particulate matter is a fantastic vehicle for the microbiome to find its way into our bodies. For the microbiome to find its way into our bodies. We saw evidence that viruses and viral transmission was more prevalent in areas of high PM2.5. Similarly, you're saying the same about mold spores. There's two really interesting parts to this One. It'd be really good to understand a lot more about how India is managing the mould challenge, because it's a different challenge to many other parts of the world is so important that just because it not just because of the nature of what the pms are made up of you know, the spores or the heavy metals or the industrial carbon or whatever it is but actually is a vehicle for some of the other stuff that we don't want to be inhaling as well, yeah, yeah, really interesting because microorganisms, they don't float or they don't travel on their own.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:They need someone, they need a carrier to move from one place to another place. Yeah, so most of the time the carrier is a human being or the dust particles.
Simon:Yeah, so I'm guessing a lot of your focus in your work is filtration, right? I mean a lot of what you do.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:More than filtration, I work on decontamination. Yeah, reason being if I filter, the microorganism is still alive, and when I keep filtering it out, when I create a gel of microorganisms at the backside of the filter. So they are alive and there's a jelly. So if tomorrow someone goes without a proper personal protective equipment to remove the filter, he will be exposed to the massive amount of organisms which is lying behind the filter. So I mainly work on the decontamination, where I want to kill the organisms, not let them live behind the filters. So yes, filtration and decontamination is my core area. It's not only in the air, even on the surfaces. I work on that.
Simon:Yeah, it's not only in the air, even on the surfaces I work on that, yeah. And what are kind of some of the principal tools that you're employing in your sector to decontaminate? Are you using things like UVC and chemicals? So what are the kind of things you're bringing to bear for killing viruses and bacterias in those situations?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:I'm not in favor of UVC. Probably I'm against most of the world. But in my experience in my test, having the high level of dust particles in India, the moment they sit on your UV lights, your UV light radiation level goes low and automatically the efficacy goes low. Yeah, so that's the reason I'm not in the favor of uh? Uv lights.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:I mainly work with uh, hydrogen peroxide chemicals uh for uh, airborne microorganisms decontamination. Why hydrogen peroxide? Because, being an oxidizing agent, it does not have any byproducts. And for airborne decontamination I use a reactor called hepa md reactor. It's I particulate, high efficiency particulate air with microbial destruction, wherein this particular reactor does not use any filter uv, light, gas or chemical. This particular reactor was developed by a european space agency in 1980s or something. I'm being working with this particular reactor for most almost 17 years now, and this reactor really, really does a good job. It does not just filter, they also degrade or destroy the organisms and retain the debris within the particular system for a longer duration. It gives really fantastic results. So my solutions are based on what kind of organisms we found the problem and where it is, and what is the budget, yeah, and how fast they want the bioremedy to be done.
Simon:And your focus, as you say, predominantly is in the kind of the healthcare sector that's where you work mostly.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Yes, I mean, come on, my 90%. Sorry, go on, vinod, please go ahead. No 90%. I work in healthcare, maybe 3-4% in pharma and remaining 7-8% in IT industry, where they have big rooms and they have frequent sick leaves and they call us to find out what is the problem.
Simon:Okay, interesting, I suppose. Coming back around to the original question around the challenges that India presents, just because of its scale, I mean, you know, I think the challenges with ambient air pollution are well documented, but I think with India at the moment it really seems to me certainly every time I talk to people that with that the other side of this comes enormous opportunities to do better, to make some really good impacts on the built environment and people's long-term health and wellbeing, and that seems to drive an awful lot of enthusiasm and dynamism in India. Is that something that you reflect on much and see in the sector? Is that there is this momentum in India more broadly to really solve some of the challenges in the built environment?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:We just started growing. Now we are not even, I would say, crossed a double digit. We are still in a single digit growth on this particular sector. But in India, this particular sector is going to grow in a much higher level in the coming decade. The reason being we just started understanding or started having a good standards, and we have now knowledge pool where people understand how to make a building or how to follow a standard. Now, now we have started, maybe I would say we just took the first step. Now we have started. Maybe I would say we just took the first step. We have a long way to go but, yes, the opportunity and progress is very, very high for every individual who is in this particular sector, I mean to say the filtration, airborne microbial control in this particular sector, yeah, and I guess you know that's with your view on your part of it.
Simon:I imagine, more broadly, across the entire built environment sector and indoor environmental quality, you know, managing thermal comfort, air quality, lighting, acoustics. It must be an incredibly dynamic space. All in all, yes, it's.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:It's a highly dynamic and a lot of people are now in the market with proper knowledge and sincere efforts to deliver what they promise and now the end user also aware what they needed right and people started understanding. The healthy life means you should have a healthy indoor. It is not that having a luxury item you have a healthy indoor. It is not that having a luxury per item, you have a healthy life. Now people started understanding and also, as we are building multiple high-rise buildings across India, it's need of an art to have a proper standard and proper making to people to have a good life.
Simon:Yeah, and you know there's a lot of knowledge out there, both in in india and also internationally, so there's not a lot of reinventing the wheel needed there.
Simon:Can you know, we can, you can pull from all sorts of sectors all over the world about what works, what doesn't and so on.
Simon:Um, but one of the challenges and this kind of brings us on to the Healthy Building Conference about pulling some of that experience in is also, I imagine, even internally, the and again it's back to that big country syndrome. You've got a lot of institutions and I picked up on the word you said there the sincerity of effort. Every time I speak to people from there, there's a really sincere effort to make a difference, do the right thing, impact people's lives, and that's palpable. You really get a sense of that and that's really encouraging, really get a sense of that and that's really encouraging. But it's also a big challenge, I imagine you've got, you know you've got people from all over the country that probably have never even met or spoken to each other or have differences in opinion, and bringing that together cohesively is going to be one of the big challenges over the next decade, I'd imagine um, probably we are the one taking the first step by having this healthy building, bringing all possible people from different sectors, from different parts of India in a single platform.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:And I'm sure people will know each other better after having this healthy building and there are going to be collective research, as per my opinion, as of now, the research is much clustered within India. Now, I'm sure in the future people will do a collective research for a single goal or a common goal and the research will be pretty impressive. And, as you mentioned that we need not invent a wheel, we can, you know, take influence from Western countries, influence from western countries, but same time we need to also understand how do we indigenize the particular technology, so which suits?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:the indian scenario. Yeah, I can give an example most of the standards of western, which says the comfortable air conditioning temperature is 21 to 24 degree, right, but you have got outdoor degree of 30 or 35 at the max. In india, most of the time we have outdoor degree of 40 plus. I need to condense it to 21 to 24. To do so, I'm spending a lot of money on the energy right, I'm energy to condense it. Same time, indians are comfortable even at 27 degree.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:So I've seen a lot of people wearing a jacket coming to the office because it's 21 degree. They start feeling cold. So this is an example where we need to get an influence from the Western standards. But again, you need indigenous to what is suitable for the Indian people. So if we have, for example, if we can make, a standard of 27 degree, it's OK, comfortable, not sweating, pleasant for an Indian people. So if we have, for example, if we can make a standard of 27 degrees, okay, comfortable, not sweating, pleasant for an Indian scenario. So I would save a lot of money on my energy and the audience or the people need not to wear jacket, not to feel cold. So, like this, there are so many aspects which we can discuss each and every aspect, but I'm sure now people have started listening or understanding that we just need not to copy paste.
Simon:We need to tweak based on what suits us yeah, yeah, that's absolutely true, and it's making me laugh because we've had we had several days in a row here in ireland of about 26 27 degrees and the country nearly came to a halt. The melting point of the Irish is about 24 degrees. All work stops, yeah, no, and that just goes to show, doesn't it? Which is a brilliant segue really onto the Healthy Buildings Conference, probably to lead us into that. Vinod, it would be good to explain what your exposure to ISIAC has been, because it's a hell of an institution that's been around for a while and holds these various indoor air and healthy building conferences all over the world. To be in contact with Izzy Ek and perhaps tell us a little bit about the journey, the story of how we've found ourselves with the inaugural Indian Healthy Buildings Conference.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:So, coming from only the science background of microbiology, and I studied and then I was learning whatever through limited resources, and one fine day I felt I need to have some global exposure and I need to learn much bigger and better. So I was just googling, you know, googling about the highest programmer studies. That's where I found indoor air 2016 in belgium. So, without knowing anything about easy act or the program, I just took a risk and traveled all the way to Belgium. I attended the six days, the entire program, and it was like a feast for me For example, if you're going to a restaurant to have a full meal and you got it what you wanted, much more. So I really, really enjoyed, cherished the movement, every movement and all the lectures were amazing. Uh, probably I I felt that I learned much more than what I spent money. Uh, after coming back from bildia, when I started implementing those knowledges, what I gained in india in my particular sector, I started getting much more success or appreciation than before. Also, I had an international contact, so if I need any data or any information, I can write to them. I get the prompt response. So, which really increased me to study more, do more work and collect more data.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:I was in very much touch with easy act and then I attended to, I submitted my paper for 2017-18 and then around 2019, I joined in a conference selection committee. I was there for a couple of years, around 2020. Then president Corinne Manlin said we know, it's been quite a long. We never had a program in India. It's I think we should do it. So at the time I said let me try to find someone who can host the program for easy act in india and then in 2023. Uh, by then I thought, okay, why not me? Why I should wait for someone else to do it? So I just bid for the healthy building 2025. Luckily, we won after six months of scrutiny and then when I won the rights to host a healthy building I know no one in India.
Simon:You were like shit, I've got to do this now.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Yes, I got to do this now and really we had no clue how. When we had no clue, I know only Dr Reddy and then I gone back to them I said see, we want it. He said start preparing it. So it's like you built a house with one brick to another and then said that's how Every individual who is going to be part of this program helped me from each and every stage. So you can simply say september 2023. I was single person. Now we have a massive program which is ready to go yeah, now that's amazing.
Simon:Uh, there was a couple of things I I noted when you were describing your journey there, and that was this, this feeling, when you attend these conferences, that you kind of find home, that that there are, there's all these amazing people, you, you hear these brilliant lectures and so on, but what you? You also noted that you, then, are part of a network of people that are always open to answer a question if you have a. You know, I've just been involved in a two-day back and forth, uh on an email between some people in this community about a very particular subject, and they're so giving of their time to talk about stuff and and it's really interesting from an international perspective that other people get that experience too that these communities, within organizations like ISIAC or ASHRAE or AIVC or others, you really are part of a network of like-minded people that really want to share and help you build and understand, don't they?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Yeah, probably this indoor air quality or this particular sector is a very small sector and the people who are there they're highly interested to be in this sector without any other interest or motivation. They give a lot of efforts, not only their own research, they give effort for others' progress too. For example, if I write some tools one some of the international professor asking a doubt in two line I will get a reply for more than two pages. So I need time to sit and read the entire reply, which will have a lot of deep thoughts with a lot of references. So those guys really love the subject, what they're into, and they put their heart and soul in the subject.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:It's not that they want to learn and keep it with them, it's that they want to share it with as much as people possible so that we can do much better work. Same way, ezac want to do it in the places where they have not been there. They want to expand. They want to connect as much as people possible in this particular group. They want to expand. They want to connect as much as people possible in this particular group so that tomorrow there could be a global data on particle count, thermal comfort, microbial, whatever, whatever. So this particular community, as per my personal feeling, they are wide open. They're open for ideas and suggestions. They are so friendly. It's not that I'm a big scientist. I have this much of pride self-pride. I've not seen anyone have such a one Whenever. Whomever I approached for this healthy building, without knowing who am I, they just supported further, lot, lot, much more than expected.
Simon:Yeah, and I can attest to that because I've got absolutely no right to be let into any of these flipping things and everybody always welcomes me in with open arms, so like it's a very welcoming uh community. In that sense, you must be very excited to bring healthy buildings to india then and expose your community to the healthy buildings and indoor air community at large. I'll have you back to the podcast in just a minute. I just wanted to briefly tell you about Eurovent Certified Performance from Eurovent Certification, a partner of the podcast.
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Vinod Kumar Sekar:Now back to the podcast see, uh, my basic study I have done in a government school, right, and then I attended multiple easy programs, for example, in belgium, taiwan and the final last one was in finland, where I could see the relationship between a professor and their student.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:It's really, really amazing and friendly and the way they teach, the way they support the students is really amazing. I felt we should also know what the relationship between the professor and the student and how the institute works, how they do multidisciplinary program and the conference is not just a four days picnic or outing. It has got much more value and meaning right. So I feel most of us may not have the opportunity to travel abroad all the time to attend such an unique or important program. So if I am someone today, it's all because of easy act and the science what I believed in. So I felt if we could do the same program in india so there could be multiple people may get benefit, there could be a global collaboration, there could be a lot of fundings where indian institutes will get to do better research, there will be opportunity for Indian students to travel abroad for their course docs and first studies and Indian companies would get highly knowledged future employees where they will deliver wonders.
Simon:So tell me a little bit, then, about what you've laid on for people at this conference, because, having spoken to you now for over the last few months, you've really tried to pull something special together, not just for the local community to be exposed to some of the keynote speakers and people you're bringing in, but for the people that are coming in to mingle and be exposed to what's happening locally in India as well. So it's a real collaboration of an event, and you've got some really interesting ideas and things that you're putting on over those few days, haven't you?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Yeah, I've seen a couple of Western universities or funding organization. They want to do a good quality research in a tropical country like India, because this data will be helpful to implement almost more than 30% of the world because we share similar weather conditions across. So, being in a big country having several research institutes, how do you find the right research partner? Google cannot give you the right answer it can't be right always. So it's important for them to come to india and to see who is doing what kind of work and at what level, and there could be a fair chances for them to have a collaborative, long-term, meaningful research and also the for international companies who want to have their own footprints in India for a high-end products and the for the standards and for the international students to mingle to understand the Indian conditions.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:India research that will be really I really helpfulia has got a lot of things to explore. We are not explored. We are not even started exploring the opportunities and the research availability, what we should do. So probably, uh, that's a main reason I want multi-country people with the different sectors to come in a single platform to know each other. So, for example, uh, me microbiologist, how do I know you? Uh, you are a air quality expert doing podcast two different nowhere. So this platform is going to make everybody uh connected from a different sectorial, and I'm sure the future is all about multi-sectorial knowledge sharing. It's not about one sector, yeah, so elder buildings will have a lot of such sessions wherein people from different industries will sit together and to discuss on a common issue brilliant tell me a little bit about hydropads, where you're hosting the, the conference.
Simon:Uh, it it's, uh, it's a very dynamic city even in of itself, isn't it? And you're holding it there at the? Is it the technical university in hyderabad?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:yes. So, uh, why we have chosen hyderabad? Uh reason being it's well connected and, uh, it does not have uh sudden harsh climatic conditions and it's very easy to commute between the airport to the venue. You need not to enter the city for any reason and it's one of the most highly growing city in terms of construction in India at this moment. I attended one program a couple of weeks back, india at this moment. I attended one program a couple of weeks back. In that program someone said more than 340 high-rise buildings are under construction only in Hyderabad alone. So Hyderabad we have chosen and we'll be hosting the program in Engineering Staff College of India, which is an Indian government organization campus by Engineering Association of India and it's a technical university campus.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:And Hyderabad is dynamic because it has got a multicultural history, from Mughals to British to local Nizams. The food is excellent in terms of multi-cuisine, especially for non-vegetarians is going to be the feast and a lot of places to visit for all the participants. You get to see an amazing palace, you get to see a beautiful lake, you get to see 500-year-old architectural marvels and you've got a lot of things to shop, like pearls and all the women accessories. You've got a lot of things to shop, like pearls and all the women, accessories and people who really enjoy eating street food, non-veg and sightseeing, travel everything. Also, hyderabad is progressing in terms of more than 40% of global pharmaceutical ingredients are made in Hyderabad the raw materials. It's a pharma hub. It's a high-tech hub. It's a healthcare hub. So it's one of the most promising, highly growing city.
Simon:Hyderabad, even though I'm not from Hyderabad, yeah, that's a great pitch for Hyderabad, bidot, considering you're not from there. Do you know? It's funny. I've spoken to a couple of people recently from India and every single one of them has gone oh, you've got to try the food in Hyderabad. It's amazing, and try this and make sure you try that, and so, yeah, really looking forward to that. And but this is this isn't all fun and cuisine and tourist visit. I mean, you've got a packed four days full of content. Perhaps tell us a little bit about what people can expect from the conference itself?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:uh, probably. Uh, this is a different kind of a conference where we try to organize with uh oral presentations by the authors and there are a lot of workshops like individual institutes. They're going to showcase their work and there'll be keynote speaking uh speakers from different country on different topics and there will be a speaking speakers from different country on different topics and there will be a panel discussion on some important discussions and there are going to be sessions mainly for students, wherein only students are allowed in those sessions and they can ask any one of the global expert, any kind of questions they want to ask. So we want to break the barrier or the shyness for the students. We want the students to get exposure to the international research community and we want the indian research community to get contacts and connects with the global research community. We want the indian companies who develop from unique technology or products for healthy building they will come and display their products. So it's going to be a knowledge sharing platform in terms of education. Same time, they can also have a hands-on experience on the products, how it is made and what it delivers and how it performs.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:So we have different kind of uh initiative or a program in this during healthy building. There are sessions where student can post the cv and some professor can come and talk to them about future grf or srf or postdoc. Even companies can come and speak to them about the future job or internship. Likewise, there are universities where they've got openings. They can post their openings, the companies can post their vacancies. So there are going to be matchmaking between the people who needs and people who has it. So this kind of things, what we're doing and one most highlighting part of LD building would be the podcast. Everybody's eager and excited and same time scared and to appear on your podcast. There is a very high level of scrutiny and screening to select the participant to appear in your podcast. I'm sure those six plus six plus another six or all the 18 people would be lucky enough to speak to you in private during the podcast and I'm sure they will have a great experience appearing and speaking with you on various topics during the podcast.
Simon:Yeah, that's something we're really looking forward to and I think the format you know to give listeners a little bit of an insight into what's planned. We've not only got some really interesting sit-downs with groups of students, with industry and also leading experts from the area, but we're also going to try and capture some thoughts and some ideas in interviews and things throughout the event. I'm really excited personally about sitting down and meeting and talking to people, but I think it's going to be a quite a unique structure for some of the podcasts and some of the interviews and really try and capture as much as we can about what what looks like is going to be a really unique event but the most highlight part would be the cultural night which is on a Monday evening, and I'm sure people will experience something cultural extravagance for two hours on Monday evening at seven to nine.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:I personally planning all kind of activities during just two hours how one should be, what kind of music, what kind of dance, what kind of instruments, how it should be organized. Everything I'm personally looking after as I love music. And there are going to be one particular session, the last 15 minutes of the cultural night. We are going to fuse certain music and share it with all the participants 10 days in advance by email. They can practice their dance steps before coming for the program and those last 15 minutes everybody can dance on the stage with their own steps for the music which we shared. That's brilliant.
Simon:I thought there for a moment. You were personally going to be doing the singing and dancing yourself. Inod for the evening.
Simon:I'm very bad in dancing, yes, as in singing, I can only organize you and me both I think we might be hiding in the corner during that part of it. I tell you what one of the things I noticed about the event which I thought was really good is you've had a lot of interest in and I think it speaks to this depth of the sector in India. You've got a lot of knowledge, partners, a lot of sponsors on board, a lot of people looking to share and really create this platform that you're talking about. I've not seen that before and I don't know if that happens elsewhere, but it's been really interesting to see quite how much interest you've had from the sector at large to be part of this event. In some way.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:No, I should really thank all my partners Because, as I'm not from this sector, when I approached people ready agreed to be the knowledge partner and as one joined, the second came on their own. You know, we came across this so-and-so conference and we want to be a part, and we ourselves purposefully stopped accepting more requests because, as we are running short of time for the conference, we, at this moment we stopped at 24 knowledge partners. We have more than six to seven society partners, we have four future sharing partners, and it goes on. I'm sure these partners are going to play a major role in terms of engaging with the participants during health building. And you can see the partners. They are not from the single industry, they are from different industry, from engineering college to the manufacturing sector. There are some societies, there are some organizations, some NGOs. It's totally, totally different mix of partners.
Simon:Yeah, and what's your hope for this knowledge sharing partnership? Is that this creates some legacy even after the event in disseminating what has been learned, maintaining some of those relationships and those networks. Is this to? Is this to to lay a foundation that lasts beyond the conference itself in some way?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Yes, if you see, in any conferences, wherever I've seen, the knowledge partners are the close friend of the organizer or the institute. But here, even most of the knowledge partners have not even met them. So it's that, anonymously, people are joined together for this good initiative. We have plans to start an Indian chapter chapter of easy act right after healthy building. So most of the knowledge partners, society partners, are agreed to continue being a partner for the indian chapter of easy act, which would be called healthy buildings and healthy buildings would be inaugurated on the day first of healthy buildings 2025.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:The indian chapter and for the members or the board members of the healthy building, we are going to choose unique in a unique manner. We are going to call for the nominees globally for the certain positions and there will be a ballot voting during the healthy building conference by the participants and they will announce who are the key members for the indian chapter of isiac and we would continue doing the activity, what isiac has done in the past. We will be doing it locally in india and we would organize some local events. We will support the institutes to get some resources globally and we are going to be the connecting partners. Connecting means connecting anyone with other people if they need any support. We have a lot of things planned for this particular chapter, but, yes, it's too initial to share a lot of things.
Simon:And what are some of the themes that you're going to be covering in the, in the content of the conference itself? I mean there's quite a a long list from what I've read through in the conference program. I mean it's certainly very packed, as all of these things are, but it's the full spectrum of the indoor environmental quality space that you're talking about here, isn't it?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Yeah, because we decided we should not be too narrow in terms of the theme or the conference content. So we went wide as much as possible on indoor air quality, inundial quality, aerosols, particles, filtration, thermal comfort, acoustic lighting, public health, hygiene, airborne control and it goes on, and we are happy to receive more than 345 submissions from almost 40 countries from all these topics. So now at this moment we have more than 140 presentations during Healthy Buildings and, as a lot of last moment interest from the people to be a part, I'm expecting more than 350 audience will bound to listen, more than 200 plus presentations and, having read all the 345 papers abstracts, there are some unique and excellent and outstanding work and results which is going to really surprise the audience.
Simon:You've read all of the abstracts, that's a feat in itself.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Yeah, because I was handling the software, so I need to assign those abstracts to the right reviewers. So I had a habit of reading the paper and then, okay, we should send this one to this person because he's the right person to review. So that's how I happened to read all the 345 abstracts, Jesus, even though something I don't understand much.
Simon:But again, yes, it was fun reading yeah, yeah, yeah, I can imagine. Well, if anything else, you're going to need a holiday after this. I'd say Vinod, when it's all said and done I'm thinking to come to Europe in the month of September. No, I could imagine and I'm assuming this is being done through various parallel sessions that there's so much here. I mean that's always. The challenge of these events is actually trying to pick which sessions you go and see. There's always going to be clashes.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:It's very hard to see everything while making the schedule we were very clear let's not have too many parallel sessions, but we bound to have four parallel sessions. Yeah, and we made sure, uh, the people will not miss out the favorite subject which is running in the parallel session. For example, I'm an air quality or airborne microbiology interested person so my favorite subject will not be running parallelly. So the parallel session would be of thermal comfort or acoustic or something else which is not of my interest. So we made sure similar kind of work or similar kind of study is not on any parallel. It's on a different timings so that one can pass through their favorite papers and move on to the next session. So that's how we have planned and it's going to be the four full days activity.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:There are fair chances. People will not get bored only by study, workshop or knowledge sharing. There will be a lot of other networking plannings which we have not announced yet. So, for example, if someone wants to talk to Pawel in private, there is a separate private meeting area. They can take his time. They can sit with him in private and discuss if they want to discuss something. These are not in the schedule. So we made a separate meeting zone where an individual, with the favorite or with whomever they want to discuss. They can sit in private and discuss.
Simon:Yeah, that's interesting.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:And the venue which we are going to host a healthy building. It's a single building, fully air conditioned. Everything would be in a single building, from the main auditorium to the parallel sessions. Expo area, food zone, meeting area, including podcasts, would be in a single building so the participant need not to walk or travel too much distance to go to the parallel session. It's just in a single building.
Simon:Yeah yeah, sounds really exciting. Sounds really exciting indeed. Um well, I can't wait. It's uh for those that still want to try and attend if they can. It's uh, what dates in august?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:finnard. The program is on august 18th. We are trying to uh close the registration by 31st of july so that we have time to prepare for the welcome kit. On all other arrangements, but yes, we just announced the option of online participation. The online participation will be available only for the main auditorium, not for all the parallel sessions. Having said that, all the parallel sessions videos would be recorded and would be uploaded and will be given them the free access to for them, to you know, watch those videos later that was interesting.
Simon:You're mixing, mixing the um, the online version of it as well, um, but. But I think, really, really to get the, the networking and the opportunities to talk to people, there's only one way to do this event and that's to come, isn't it?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:You need to be present. If you want to have fun and experience, you should be present.
Simon:Yeah, and from experience looking at this, it is a very gettable to place internationally. There's a lot of, lot of service to hyderabad from all sorts of major international hubs, particularly the middle east, excuse me, so you know, for visitors from europe and north american places like that, it's, it's um very travelable too. Um, and definitely worth considering looking at who's going to be talking and who's going to be there for sure.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:It's very well connected globally Maybe direct flights to Europe, selected cities and well connected to Middle East, so people can lay over. And for all the international participants, we are arranging an airport pickup. Irrespective of whatever the time they arrive, there will be a volunteer to pick them up directly to drive them to the hotel, because we don't want people to land and have some bad experience or struggle with indian language or the cab booking apps. So for all those international participants who's coming from the international destination, we are arranging the pickup for them and most of all of the people who are staying in the designated hotels would be picked up in the morning and dropped in the evening by us. We don't want you to have the fun of walking in Indian streets, so we want you to be much safe. So we'll arrange the pickup and drop for most of the people who are staying in the hotel.
Simon:You're taking away from us one of the great challenges of international travel and that is arriving at airports and trying to figure out what taxi app is going to work in this particular country. So thank you for that. That's going to be very much appreciated. No, really looking forward to it, vinod. I think it's going to be a fantastic event and, personally, the highlight of my year. Certainly really looking forward to it, vinod. I think it's going to be a fantastic event and, personally, the highlight of my year. Certainly really looking forward to traveling, meeting you in person and all of your colleagues and you're excellent. You know we should mention your executive committee, or organizing committee that's involved. You know you've done a lot, but you've not done this alone. You've got a really good team of people around you, haven't you pulling this together?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:You've got a really good team of people around you, haven't you pulling this together? Yeah, I need to appreciate my team and, more than that, I need to appreciate the volunteers. You can see the number of committee members in the website. I never met most of them, so even now we are meeting virtually. We are planning what kind of souvenir, what kind of food, what kind of dance, what kind of handouts. So people are taking over the in-charge of themselves or means at the conference themselves, and they are executing on their own how best we should do for this conference, because it is not a kind of a commercial program. It's purely the program for connecting people to each other. So we have a team of people in Delhi, team of people in Hyderabad, and they are meticulously working as well as the committee. Members of all the committee get themselves come up with the ideas and plans to how to make it better, how to get more sponsors, how to get more participants. So I need to really thank all the committee members and I'm sure they'll be thanked well during the conference.
Simon:Yeah, absolutely. And you know, quite an undertaking by yourself. I guess you never thought a few years ago, as a microbiologist, that you'd be organizing a healthy buildings international, healthy buildings conference. I'm sure, buildings international, healthy buildings conference, I'm sure, um, I mean, tell me a little bit about your journey. How did you? I mean, we've heard a little bit how you ended up here organizing a flipping conference, and most people do one and will give it a good break before they do another. For sure you can attest there's a lot to it um, but um, how did you find yourself doing the work that you do, uh, you mean to say the conference or my personal work, your personal work? I mean, like, how did you end up in this space in general? I mean, we learned, you know, you've spoken a little bit how you've kind of found yourself at isiac events, but but what's been your journey to for you, for your day job, which I'm assuming you're going to have to go back to at some point?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Yeah no, I'm doing my work parallelly, as I mentioned, I'm basically an expert on. Of course, I can't say myself an expert, but I'm very well aware about how to find a source of microbial contamination.
Simon:I always think it's only experts that don't want to call themselves experts. But yes, I know what you mean.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:So yeah, your expertise has been in kind of monitoring and diagnosing and that kind of thing I know for example, even in healthcare, even in hospital, if they have a heartbreak or if they are unable to find a source of contamination organisms. So they call me. My expertise is to find from where the organism has come and then I'll also give them the corrective solution. I'll stay back till the microorganism is removed from the particular area so it could be from air, water, surface textile or any parameters. So it needs the multi-sectorial skill and knowledge right in terms of engineering, microbiology, water quality, textile, whatever.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:So my work is mainly in healthcare. I work with a lot of hospitals in India for my research as well as for my work to help them to identify the source of the problem and resolve the problem. It's not that I come, do the testings and give them the report, so I stay back, make sure they implement something which removes the problem and then we take a leap. And as India is growing, my demand at the workload is pretty high. I travel extensively across India and I work with several promising institutes across India.
Simon:So do you have a team of people or are you doing this pretty much on your own? Are you effectively an independent consultant, pretty much on your own? Is this, uh, are you effectively an independent consultant or you are you working? Is your company got a number of operatives that are out there doing stuff?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:no, we have a big team, not very big team. We have a team of around 12 to 15 people located in different part of india. Because for there are certain uh problem or crisis, I need not to travel. The team can let me know what is the problem. I can tell them what are the treatment from here. So I mainly travel if there's a new setup which is going to be started, so I make sure that I visit. I make sure they follow all the standards and it's within the permissible limit. Or if there's a major outbreak. In that case, yes, I travel myself limit. Or if there's a major outbreak, in that case, yes, I travel myself, but the team helps me to get the basic data or primary data, and then I work on how to rectify the issues. There is a team spread across india.
Simon:It sounds like a lot of what you do is kind of in the field of occupational hygiene or industrial hygiene is is it? Is there quite a big element of that kind of going in and doing risk assessments and measurements and providing advice and implementing things is, is it, are you in that field, or is it very specifically microbiology and you're going in and just dealing with that side of stuff? Would you find yourself doing other things as well, like chemical analysis and other things as well?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:I know I don't involve in all those. I mainly work with microbiology.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Yeah, even if I'm working with an hospital, the hospital microbiology department is in charge of conducting the sampling and then giving me the results okay so I will tell them where to sample, how to sample and what to sample, and then I will get the results and then we will take a decision how to rectify it, how to rectify again. I will only tell them the suggestions and then it depends on their respective institute to decide what technology they want to use and through whom they want to use. They will do the implementation of the procedure, what I given, and then again I go to check the results whether it has been implemented properly or not. Because if I myself do the work, it will become biased so they may think that I'm promoting a particular product or technology or solution. So that's where I don't involve. I give them multiple recommendations and, based on their budget, based on the technology, what they're convinced with, it's up to them to implement those technology.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:I'll go and only see how it's implemented, whether it's correct, and if correct means is, the problem is resolved. So all those aspects. So basically mine is only a detective job. So all those aspects. So basically mine is only a detective job. I don't do much of the day-to-day testing and other analytical work.
Simon:Interesting and from what you're saying, it sounds like it's a growing sector. How's the challenge of finding skills and labor in India for your particular disciplines? Is it something that you're hungry for to find the right people, or is the industry well served with the skills that you need?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:This industry is not at all well served. It's very, very, very minimal knowledgeable people in this industry. This industry probably run by only easily. You can count number of people in terms of high quality experts in this particular sector. Anybody can say I'm an air quality expert.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:But no, Just ventilation, air conditioning or filtration, particulate matter, rust and dust particles does not give you the comprehensive knowledge, because here if you know what is the problem, for example, and in a hospital having tuberculosis outbreak, so you need to have a multi-sectorial information or knowledge to understand from where it could have come in, how it spread and now how I'm going to control without disturbing the other existing activity. Yeah, so normal hvac and filtration cannot do this because you will immediately go and stop the entire issue and the hospital cannot stop certain things. So there are only limited number of highly qualified experts in this particular sector and finding a manpower who has got such an unique knowledge it's very, very difficult. So we do have people with different expertise. We get the data from them and then we club it and take a solution out of it yeah, yeah, I think it's um, that's the advantages of a growing sector.
Simon:It's a growing sector, but with that comes a struggle with supply. You know, finding the right skills and finding the right people, yeah for sure. But what an opportunity for people looking, you know, like, for people attending the conference even to see and I think this is what's really interesting about these types of events and conferences and these conversations that we have on things like podcasts is signposting for the next generation what an area of opportunity it is to be coming into at the moment.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:You know the, you know this place it, this, this sector of the built environment is exploding literally and enormous opportunity for people coming into it yes, there's a huge opportunity for the people who has got a broad mind in terms of learning something which not their core subject and ready to accept. The reality is that you are just out of the industry. People will pay you a bag full of money. It's not that way you need to have. You need to make your hands dirty. For example, in simple english. They need to understand and I personally I know uh. Which institute, which company or which organization attending healthy building, looking for future employees? Looking for future uh research fellows, looking for future research partners?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:yeah which I cannot reveal. Yes, I'm personally aware there is one big research institute globally. They are hardening the healthy building just to find out the suitable partner. Yeah, interesting, With huge money funds available with them.
Simon:Looking forward in your sector. What excites you most? Do you think about the future of your sector in india?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:now. Um, I think india has more than 55 000 hospitals now. Wow, the ratio between government and private was very uh large in the past. Now, sooner, the qualified or quality-based private healthcare sector would overcome the government healthcare sectors in terms of number of hospitals and number of beds. Now people are more aware about the quality and even the customer, the visitor, the patient. They want a quality health care in terms of cleanness, hygiene, less of nosocomial infections and all the stuff. So this sector is going to grow a much larger extent, provided we provide them a proper support with the proper technical knowledge. I do understand sky high, sky rise buildings are increasing, but those are for healthy humans, but when health care is for not so healthy humans? So this sector need more importance than compared to the other sector, and I'm sure the people who is investing in health care sector are now very much clear what kind of environment they should build in. Now we can see a lot of internationally aggregated hospitals in India which would rather grow in much, much higher percentages in the coming years.
Simon:Yeah, and I suppose that's just a natural evolution. As the economics of India improves decade after decade, is that the nature of some of these service provisions change with that as well. So it'd be interesting to see how these more private, more advanced spaces, where the expectation is improving all the time, what that does to the sector. But at the same time, I guess you know, looking at other parts of the world, we've always got to be mindful of this two-tiered approach you end up, but particularly in health care, where there is a, there is a responsibility for society to protect the most vulnerable, and and that that end of the of the health care sector needs protecting as well, doesn't it?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Yes, because we have a population as a strength in India for healthcare and, moreover, now the medical tourism is growing at a larger scale because it's very, very economic. Treatment is given in India and quality. So most of, if you see, the medical tourism, probably India is leading globally. So expecting more inflow of medical tourism patients to Indian cities. The Indian hospitals are now more aware, are more straightforward thinking to build a world-class facility to attract more international patients and they pay a lot. So if they're paying, you should provide them the quality, what they require. That's the reason the global or international aggregations are now growing in India and all the upcoming private hospitals are trying to be one of them, and all the upcoming private hospitals are trying to be one of them.
Simon:If you could give one bit of advice to a young engineer or architect or entrepreneur in India at the moment, what areas would you say to be looking at when it comes to the built environment? What, what? When you look downstream, with all your experience of what's happening and where this is going, where where do you see? Where would the spotlight be falling for you, for people looking into this space? Where should they be looking?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:in my personal opinion, whichever subject they love, they should know full about their own subject. It is not that one particular sector is very high, growing and another sector is not. I don't feel that way. For example, if somebody loves plumbing or water related stuff, they should know everything about that particular plumbing. If you don't do proper plumbing, there will be water leakage and there will be seepage and there will be mold growing and that will lead to the health impacts. So every sector has got its own potential and every sector is growing. But the knowledge, what you have, it should be utmost or detailed knowledge of the sector which you are in. If you are loving a subject you should love thoroughly. You should not learn something here, something there. You cannot be master of all, you cannot be an AI. So you better, you would be more specific and be an expert in that specific subject. I'm sure the future is yours.
Simon:Yeah, focus and specialize is the advice, exactly. Yeah, really interesting, vinod. It's been brilliant talking to you this afternoon just before we finish. Have we covered everything you think you wanted to cover, vinod, in our conversation?
Vinod Kumar Sekar:yes, yeah, almost we have covered everything about the program.
Simon:Yeah, I think we covered but what we'll do is we'll wind it up there. So, vinod, listen. Thanks so much for spending the time with me this afternoon chatting. It's been brilliant. I can't wait to see you in person. Uh, might even have a little dance god help everybody else and uh, I can't wait to to see you all at healthy buildings and and the conference at the end of august, yes, of course we are waiting for you are on everyone's arrival.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Uh, we are there. The team is there to arrange pickup from airport to your hotel. Uh, across the program, maybe we can sit somewhere in a quiet place have a cup of coffee together. Perfect, even though I'll be running around a lot, yes, I'll make sure that I spend some quality time with you.
Simon:We'll try and carve out some time together for sure. Vino. Thanks a minute. It's been great talking to you my pleasure.
Vinod Kumar Sekar:Thanks for your time and thanks for the opportunity.
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