Rochan Sinha
Present
I am the co-founder and CTO of Newtrace, a cleantech startup working on developing and manufacturing the next generation of electrolyzers for low-cost green hydrogen generation. The journey has taken us from a SaaS product to a full-fledged hardware product. Highlights include going from a proof-of-concept in Dec 2021 to a full-scale commercial pilot system in Dec 2023. The journey has taken me from being an inventor to being a strategist, manager and full-time problem solver. More details in a blog post to be published soon(-ish).
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In my free time, I am upgrading my programming and 3-D modelling skills by following the 'learn-by-doing' paradigm. ​I am also currently writing about various topics ranging from grief to the behavior of hydrogen bubbles in a porous material. ​Reading has been my favorite past time since forever, but recently I have started listening to podcasts as well to make more efficient use of my time (more on these in my reading list). ​
Past
I currently reside in Bengaluru (India) via Patna, Delhi, Leuven (Belgium) and Eindhoven (Netherlands).
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In college, I was a founding member of the automotive club. This was also the time I decided to work on renewable energy after a short stint at a solar cell production factory because of the challenges and opportunities in the development of clean and renewable energy sources to replace the current fossil fuel-driven society.
This drove me to move towards materials sciences and nanotechnology, to learn how to develop and study new materials for renewable energy. During my master's thesis at IMEC, I got a chance to study cathode materials for solid state batteries.
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After my Master's, I felt like I wanted to work in a field which was at an even more nascent stage. Hence, I started my PhD at DIFFER, working on developing new materials for hydrogen generation from water splitting using solar energy, colloquially called 'Solar Fuels'.
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After my PhD, I returned home to India in Feb 2020 and decided to dive into the startup eco-system, and was selected for the Entrepreneur First program (in Bangalore but run remotely) which was a pseudo-MBA on entrepreneurship, marketing, idea validation etc. Went on to also do a program at NSRCEL (IIMB) in collaboration with Maruti Suzuki, working on a materials informatics platform for new material discovery.
However, quickly realised that Software is not what I want to spend my time on. That is when I decided to work on something I was passionate about- climate change mitigation. And I chose what I was good at- novel means of green hydrogen production. This is when Newtrace as it is today was born, and that's what I have been working on since.
Future
My aim for the future is to help accelerate the rate of adoption of new renewable energy technologies in every sector globally from automotive to industrial manufacturing. To this end, my aim is to develop Newtrace into a renewable energy product development platform starting with a low-cost electrolyzer made entirely with non-precious materials, for cheap green hydrogen. This is to be followed by devices for producing other non-sexy but essential industrial products such as ammonia, methanol etc.
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On the personal front, my goals are to improve and maintain my physical and mental health, and to keep trying to understand my thought processes and increase my level of self-awareness. I am also working on improving my personal finance and investment skills, to attain a comfortable level of passive income by the time I hit 40.
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In terms of hobbies, I want to continue working on my programming and art skills, while (re-)learning the guitar and piano. Music and art have always made me happy and I want to imbibe the same paradigm as to everything else in my life: 'Be an artist, not a critic'.