Reflections anno 2023 - Partnerships, Communities, Fuel Cell, Mental Health, & De-Growth

Introduction

Another hypothetical year comes to an end where our collective belief systems agree on to so called 2023. There is not a 0.001% difference between the 31st Dec / 1st Jan and say 22nd June or 14th October. Nevertheless, most of humanity makes a big deal about this and spends a gala time at the cost of the planet to celebrate the transition towards just another day. This post is about the reflections / learnings of the past year.

Highlights 2023

4 Years of Entrepreneurship

In September I completed four full years of running a business, with the first couple of years in the Netherlands, and the past two years in India. Umagine has literally been the core motivation of my life over these years. Even though it has been four years, every day feels like it is day 1. The excitement, challenge, and uncertainty continue to motivate me and be the figurative oxygen for my journey. No journey is without its set of ups and downs, and the same has been the case for me - from immense successes to existential crises, we have also seen them all, and that too multiple times over. The impact of this on my personal life has been nothing short of catastrophic at times, but somehow the dream of building a sustainable future has remained strong and persisted.

I wrote this in my previous post, and love to quote it here. It describes the energy we have and how we see the times ahead.

Future is bright, future is bold, future is sustainable, and future is the "U (You)" in Umagine. Achieving a sustainable future remains our north star, hydrogen continues to be our rocket fuel, and we continue to make our decisions based on our core value system. Umagine enters its 5th year, and it is time to shift our gears - Impact is key, Cash is king, and Perseverance is in our blood.

Partnerships are Fluid

This year was particularly hard in one way from the perspective of partnerships. Several deep-knit business relationships that were formed over the past couple of years couldn't stand the test of time. A few of them perished, and the impact of those splits was to be borne. A good bit of self-reflection leads me to two opposing thoughts. On one hand, it is a good thing what happened - if it is not meant to be, it is better to discontinue rather than prolong and bear the stress of a not-so-pleasant relationship. On the other hand, taking the path of resolution and make-up is something I could do a bit more.

After all, no relationships are perfect - personal or professional, and a healthy compromise and understanding is key. It is this dilemma that I do think about at the end of this year, and wonder which of those relationships could have been saved, and perhaps which of those still active could/should have been let go of. The balance is always a difficult one to strike, and the pursuit of that continues.

Official Launch of H2 Carbon Zero

After more than 1-1.5 years of hard work, we officially launched the H2 Carbon Zero brand, which focuses on product development and manufacturing of hydrogen fuel cells. We recently shipped one of our first fuel cells, and an announcement for another one is coming shortly. This launch was a very special and important moment in my professional life. I wrote about my journey in one of the articles. With impact always being the central, and a lot of time over the past few years spent in consulting, I was feeling kind of lost and at the point of getting disillusioned. With our activities towards technology development and manufacturing over the past 1.5 years and the official launch of it - it feels that this is a long-term calling.

Of course this is far more challenging and uncertain, but it is worth fighting for. As part of this, we forged new partnerships throughout the year across the globe - Europe, Asia, Australia, the UK, and the US. Several of these relationships are going to be crucial in the next few years.

Year of Disseminating Knowledge

I spent a considerable amount of time standing in front of groups of enthusiastic students, professionals, and executives who wanted to know about various aspects of green hydrogen and its role in decarbonization. I have lost count of the number of such talks honestly, but it has been a humbling experience, to say the least. The latest one was just a couple of days back, and even after several of these sessions, new questions get asked which I don't always have answers to.

Although most of these sessions were on a pro-bono basis, the true satisfaction for me is to ignite that spark of excitement that could potentially result in truly game-changing ideas or innovations. The magnitude of the problem we are trying to solve is so immense, that we need all hands on deck to get to the solution.

Re-Connecting with the Roots

This was a very successful year when it came to reconnecting with the various institutes that shaped me throughout. Opportunities to re-connect with my alumni at school Apeejay Noida, Bachelor's National Institute of Technology Calicut , and Master's Delft University of Technology and my first job at Shell. I had the fortune to join various communities and meet-ups of alums, as well as pay a visit to all these campuses in 2023. The experience of reconnecting was quite emotional, and felt very satisfactory to be closing the loop after so many years.

I was describing this recently to someone, being part of a community has been one of the evolutionary traits of us as a species. Belongingness and inseparability are something I realized later that I was missing for a long time. After all these years of a highly individualistic lifestyle, it was good to unlearn a lot of that and recognize the importance of community.

Making Mental Health a Priority

Although I have been working on this consciously over the past few years in a more or less isolated way, this year marked a significant shift in my approach towards mental health. I joined SoulUp and became part of an awesome community as a peer. I have been part of several support groups over the past year, and it has been an eye-opener. The comfort level that there is a community itself is so powerful, it feels that there is someone to take care of in addition to your family and friends. Hearing from many of the fellow participants in these groups is heartening and gives quite a bit of a perspective. This is one of my best finds of this year, and look forward to continuing to be part of the community and supporting and getting supported.

Focus on Degrowth / Postgrowth

I have been thinking about this for more than 4 years now but finally started to work consciously towards aspects around degrowth. I did write a comprehensive piece on this and started to connect with the wider degrowth communities. I also realized this year that I am really passionate and deeply committed to a lot of these aspects, and truly believe that a tectonic shift has to be done to change and move towards a sustainable future.

This will continue to be one of my major side hustles in the upcoming years, with a focus on implementing some of these alternate society ideas in smaller communities or villages as a starting point.

Personal milestone - Mom retires after 40.5 years

My mom joined service in her bank (Bank of Baroda) in June 1983, and she turned 60 and retired this month after 40.5 years of being an employee with the same bank. I could never imagine that such a long service tenure is even possible. I had a few colleagues at Shell in the refinery, who also retired after 40-42 years. In a day and age when working somewhere for even 2 years seems like a stretch, and one wants a change, it is remarkable to see such long service tenures. Loyalty and attachment to the institution, both of which are very scarce nowadays is a nice thing to see.

Conclusion

All in all an exciting year, bumpy as usual, productive, and one of the main new themes being community. Heading to 2024 with a lot of memories and key learnings, wish to achieve more impact on the ground. Time is running away for the planet, and especially for us as a species to undo a lot of what we have decimated over the past 200 years.

Lastly, thank you very much to all those reading this newsletter and my posts - your support / feedback / encouragement has been invaluable. Look forward to another productive year full of thought-provoking articles.