NUS Scholar by Day, Eco-designer by Night
Text: Yip Wai Yan
Have you ever looked at a dead piece of bamboo and thought of turning it into a wireless speaker?
Siddharth Rajgopalan has.
A fourth-year mechanical engineering undergraduate at the National University of Singapore, Rajgopalan recently helped prototype one of Sustainable Living Lab’s most successful inventions — an electricity-free speaker for iPhones made entirely from natural bamboo.
Sustainable Living Lab, more commonly known as SL2, is a technology-driven social enterprise that creates functional products with a green agenda and a humanitarian edge.
On top of doing schoolwork and fulfilling his duties as president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the entrepreneurship interest group StartUp@Singapore, Rajgopalan spends his free time in SL2 turning everyday objects into eco-friendly furniture.
Rajgopalan said working on his bamboo speakers, called the iBam, made him realise that a profession in engineering had so much more potential than simply designing things on a computer.
“Making the iBam lets me bring together my skills as an engineer and my passion for making a positive difference in the world,” he said.
Have you ever looked at a dead piece of bamboo and thought of turning it into a wireless speaker?
Siddharth Rajgopalan has.
A fourth-year mechanical engineering undergraduate at the National University of Singapore, Rajgopalan recently helped prototype one of Sustainable Living Lab’s most successful inventions — an electricity-free speaker for iPhones made entirely from natural bamboo.
Sustainable Living Lab, more commonly known as SL2, is a technology-driven social enterprise that creates functional products with a green agenda and a humanitarian edge.
On top of doing schoolwork and fulfilling his duties as president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the entrepreneurship interest group StartUp@Singapore, Rajgopalan spends his free time in SL2 turning everyday objects into eco-friendly furniture.
Rajgopalan said working on his bamboo speakers, called the iBam, made him realise that a profession in engineering had so much more potential than simply designing things on a computer.
“Making the iBam lets me bring together my skills as an engineer and my passion for making a positive difference in the world,” he said.
Rajgopalan said the iBam empowers marginalised communities as the speaker is carved by traditional Indonesian craftsmen whose businesses have declined due to mass manufacturing. He said the organisation also hires single unemployed mothers to package the product.
Kimberly Ang, a fourth-year NUS English literature undergraduate and one of Rajgopalan’s closest friends, said she was impressed with the iBam’s ability to address multiple social issues.
“It’s really nice to see Sid making a product that encapsulates all his values,” Ang said. “The iBam isn’t just eco-friendly, but the way that it is developed and sold also relates to issues such as poverty and social marginalisation, areas of concern that are often neglected by your everyday NUS student but are always on Sid’s mind.”
Born and bred in Calcutta, India, Rajgopalan never imagined entering the social entrepreneurship scene until he moved to Singapore in 2010 to attend university.
“I always knew I wanted to make a positive impact on society but I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it,” he said. “I was never exposed to the idea of using something like engineering to improve the well-being of people.”
Rajgopalan only discovered the concept of social entrepreneurship in his second year of study when he was invited by one of the co-founders of SL2 to attend a humanitarian engineering workshop at their lab.
After the introductory programme ended, Rajgopalan desperately wanted to understand the company’s values and culture better. He began volunteering regularly at the organisation for several months before joining as a full-time staff member in May 2012.
Rajgopalan said the main driving force that pushed him to join the organisation was its community.
“Before SL2, I never found such a dynamic group of people who collectively wanted to make a difference in society. Irrespective of them being educators, students or engineers, everyone at SL2 shares a larger goal that they are working towards,” he said.
On weekends, the aspiring entrepreneur also volunteers at the organisation’s partner programme called “Balik Kampung," which literally means “return to village” in Malay. The programme takes place at a self-sustaining eco-centre in Yishun where people of all backgrounds come together to learn basic tasks such as farming and communal cooking.
Although it may seem odd that a foreign mechanical engineering student is so invested in local humanitarian and environmental projects, friends and colleagues said Rajgopalan is sincere about his interest in social entrepreneurship.
Melanie Tan, a long-term volunteer at SL2, said Rajgopalan has a very sensitive and philosophical side beneath his headstrong exterior.
“When he’s not drafting new product designs, he’s busy highlighting and annotating poetry books by Rumi,” Tan said. “Sid can be very pragmatic and corporate-like but at heart he is very deep and affectionate.”
In fact, Tan said Rajgopalan is so pre-occupied with coming up with ideas on how he can continue to improve the lives around him that he ends up not sleeping very much.
Rajgopalan even withdrew from the highly selective NUS Overseas Colleges programme in Israel during his third year at NUS in order to spend more time working at SL2.
“I withdrew from the programme just less than a month before we were set to leave Singapore because I didn’t want to put my work in SL2 on hold. Going to Israel for a semester would have, of course, been an amazing life experience but I much preferred to spend those six months doing something I truly believed in,” Rajgopalan said.
While working and going to school at the same time can be stressful and at times overwhelming, Rajgopalan said he takes great pleasure in meeting diverse groups of people who have unique ways of thinking and living.
“By working with people outside of school, I’ve come to realise different values,” he said. “I believe in the saying that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. I look up to my peers in SL2 and I hope that this community I’ve discovered will help me continue to grow as a person and learn how to live a more virtuous life.”
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Kimberly Ang, a fourth-year NUS English literature undergraduate and one of Rajgopalan’s closest friends, said she was impressed with the iBam’s ability to address multiple social issues.
“It’s really nice to see Sid making a product that encapsulates all his values,” Ang said. “The iBam isn’t just eco-friendly, but the way that it is developed and sold also relates to issues such as poverty and social marginalisation, areas of concern that are often neglected by your everyday NUS student but are always on Sid’s mind.”
Born and bred in Calcutta, India, Rajgopalan never imagined entering the social entrepreneurship scene until he moved to Singapore in 2010 to attend university.
“I always knew I wanted to make a positive impact on society but I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it,” he said. “I was never exposed to the idea of using something like engineering to improve the well-being of people.”
Rajgopalan only discovered the concept of social entrepreneurship in his second year of study when he was invited by one of the co-founders of SL2 to attend a humanitarian engineering workshop at their lab.
After the introductory programme ended, Rajgopalan desperately wanted to understand the company’s values and culture better. He began volunteering regularly at the organisation for several months before joining as a full-time staff member in May 2012.
Rajgopalan said the main driving force that pushed him to join the organisation was its community.
“Before SL2, I never found such a dynamic group of people who collectively wanted to make a difference in society. Irrespective of them being educators, students or engineers, everyone at SL2 shares a larger goal that they are working towards,” he said.
On weekends, the aspiring entrepreneur also volunteers at the organisation’s partner programme called “Balik Kampung," which literally means “return to village” in Malay. The programme takes place at a self-sustaining eco-centre in Yishun where people of all backgrounds come together to learn basic tasks such as farming and communal cooking.
Although it may seem odd that a foreign mechanical engineering student is so invested in local humanitarian and environmental projects, friends and colleagues said Rajgopalan is sincere about his interest in social entrepreneurship.
Melanie Tan, a long-term volunteer at SL2, said Rajgopalan has a very sensitive and philosophical side beneath his headstrong exterior.
“When he’s not drafting new product designs, he’s busy highlighting and annotating poetry books by Rumi,” Tan said. “Sid can be very pragmatic and corporate-like but at heart he is very deep and affectionate.”
In fact, Tan said Rajgopalan is so pre-occupied with coming up with ideas on how he can continue to improve the lives around him that he ends up not sleeping very much.
Rajgopalan even withdrew from the highly selective NUS Overseas Colleges programme in Israel during his third year at NUS in order to spend more time working at SL2.
“I withdrew from the programme just less than a month before we were set to leave Singapore because I didn’t want to put my work in SL2 on hold. Going to Israel for a semester would have, of course, been an amazing life experience but I much preferred to spend those six months doing something I truly believed in,” Rajgopalan said.
While working and going to school at the same time can be stressful and at times overwhelming, Rajgopalan said he takes great pleasure in meeting diverse groups of people who have unique ways of thinking and living.
“By working with people outside of school, I’ve come to realise different values,” he said. “I believe in the saying that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. I look up to my peers in SL2 and I hope that this community I’ve discovered will help me continue to grow as a person and learn how to live a more virtuous life.”
Tags: profile