How One Babson MSBA Student Addressed Climate Change
Geeth Devara MSBA’24 has seen how things have changed.
For almost 15 years, he lived in Pune, a vibrant hub of tech and education in India. He came to the city to attend high school and college, and when he first arrived, in the early 2000s, he remembers the weather. It was pleasant. On warm days, a fan felt sufficient to keep one cool.
Then the years passed, and a transformation seemed to occur. The city heated up. “There was a major shift,” Devara says. “It was impossible to live in the city without air conditioning.”
Such a shift in temperature is sadly not uncommon in this era of climate change. Living through an unsettling transformation in the climate around him left an impression on Devara, making him want to focus on sustainability in the future.
Earlier this year, Devara worked with an international team at the IBM Sustainability Accelerator—an initiative providing technology and expertise to governments and organizations addressing climate change’s impact on vulnerable populations—to help develop an intricate model using satellite images. Created in a collaboration between IBM, the German Aerospace Center, and Sustainable Energy for All, a United Nations-aligned organization, that model can be used to identify people at risk during a heat wave.
“This project was quite close to me,” Devara says. “I was very passionate about it.”
Working with an Industry Leader
Devara was born and raised in India, and before coming to Babson, he worked for a tech company that provides services for franchises. As franchises are set up in rural areas across the country, the company offers them a platform to handle all of their financial operations.
His pivot to working in sustainability came after attending an IBM event where the chief technology officer of IBM Cloud was speaking about sustainability. When the talk finished, Devara waited to speak with her, and she, in turn, introduced him to the director of the IBM Sustainability Accelerator. Eventually, he was able to land a position. “It was a chance to work with an industry leader,” he says. “You see how technology is being used.”
Devara’s work with IBM was completed as part of an Inventureship, a Babson College fellowship that empowers students to pursue a social innovation project with a company or nonprofit. Babson started Inventureships so students can learn firsthand how to make a positive social impact.
“This has been a transformative experience, and I’m excited to carry forward the skills and knowledge I’ve gained.”
Geeth Devara MSBA’24
For the Inventureship, Devara worked remotely with a multinational team, its members hailing from Brazil, Germany, Kenya, and Switzerland. The model they helped develop, using satellite images, has drawn interest from two countries. In Kenya, policymakers are aiming to use the model for government planning, as it can identify critical infrastructure and energy usage.
In India, climate change is the concern, with so many people clustered in crowded, hot cities. “We wanted a tool that is suited to India,” Devara says. With its strong resolution, the model can be used to distinguish building materials and help to anticipate how much temperatures will rise in a given area.
During a heat wave, that information can assist officials in determining what mitigation or evacuation measures might be needed to save lives. “Prioritizing who gets aid first is very important,” he says.
Looking to the Future
Devara learned a lot during the Inventureship. “This has been a transformative experience, and I’m excited to carry forward the skills and knowledge I’ve gained,” he says. As part of the project, for instance, Devara worked closely with government leaders in Maharashtra, a state in the west of India that includes Mumbai. “This experience helped me build leadership skills that I know will serve me well in future roles,” he says.
The future is certainly on Devara’s mind. He graduates from Babson this month, and he hopes to continue working with sustainability and tech moving forward. “After you achieve a lot of things in your life, it makes sense to give back,” he says.
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