TU Delft has earned a reputation for producing online learning. Now Dr. PV Aravind goes beyond MOOCs by combining distance learning with tutoring, serious games and hands-on experience in KnowHY.
MOOCs (massive open online courses) have the potential of reaching thousands of students all over the world. The TU Delft courses on solar energy and water management especially have proved to be enormously popular. But what about if you want to go beyond teaching theory and train technicians to make installations?
Dr. P.V. Aravind from Process & Energy at the Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering leads a European consortium called KnowHy that aims to speed up the introduction of fuel cell technology. Fuel cells combine fuel and oxygen to produce electricity and heat. With hydrogen as fuel, the only exhaust gas is water vapor. Thus, fuel cell technology has a great potential as a clean and efficient way of directly generating power, for example in hydrogen cars.
The industry reckons it’ll be needing thousands of technicians to introduce fuel cell technology into society. Thus, they’re looking for a fast-track for the training. And that is where KnowHY comes in. The training program contains online education, tutoring, serious gaming and a traveling lab for hands-on experience. For the batch starting in September 2016, Dutch students generally would pay 850 Euro to participate.
The course combines a primary module on fuel cell principles and hydrogen safety with one of five specialisation modules: automotive, hydrogen production, micro fuel cells, combined heat & power or fuel cell based generators.
The KnowHY consortium has thirteen members, including European universities and industries. The budget was 1.4 million Euro, for the training of thousands fuel cell technicians.
Aravind thinks similar training programs could accelerate the introduction of disruptive technologies in other domains as well. He mentioned micro-grids, 3-D printing , and robotics as examples.
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