Chandrakant Patel is a Senior Fellow and Chief Engineer at HP Inc. He leads HP’s technology strategy and the company’s global technical community. With extensive experience in leadership and innovation, Mr. Patel has driven the development of servers and data centers from concept to market. Formerly leading HP Labs, he shaped advancements in storage, networking, print engines, and software platforms. Pioneering energy-efficient data center solutions, he founded the Smart Data Center research program. Mr. Patel's research interests span microbusiness connectivity, data center cost reduction, cyber-physical integration, sustainable cities, distributed computing, and 3D printing industrialization.  Additionally, he has been an adjunct faculty member at Chabot College, the University of California Berkeley Extension, Santa Clara University, and San Jose State University. A Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), he has been granted 157 patents and has authored more than 150 papers. He has served on the board of Mphasis Company in India, and on the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Industrial Advisory Board at U.C. Berkeley. In 2014, Mr. Patel was elected to the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame.  He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from U.C. Berkeley and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from San Jose State University and is registered as a Professional Mechanical Engineer in the state of California. Mr. Patel was elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering in 2018 for contributions in thermal and energy management of information technology systems. 

Title: A Holistic Fundamentals Based Supply-Demand Framework for Sustainability

Abstract: Environmental sustainability has become an urgent priority for companies and governments because of global challenges from social, economic, and ecological trends. Resource constraints, the needs of an aging demography, the lack of human capital, and natural disasters have become major disturbances between supply and demand.

Current methods, while laudable, are not enough for companies and governments to reach necessary environmental goals as they often do not address key factors such as negative externalities, cradle-to-cradle energy costs, and global inequity. To successfully mitigate the impacts of anthropogenic climate change, sustainability strategies must be founded on a fundamentals-based holistic perspective that considers the supply-side and the demand-side.

The talk presents a fundamentals based holistic supply-demand approach to sustainability using Joules of available energy as the common measure. It proposes a systematic approach in applying the framework in building sustainable infrastructure.