Smart Grid Society Meeting

Jobs and Economic Growth Opportunities in Georgia

Part 1 Speaker Bios

Dr. Deepak Divan, Director-Intelligent Power Infrastructure Consortium and Professor School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology.  Deepak Divan obtained his bachelors of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, in Kanpur in 1975, and his master’s. and PhD degrees from the University of Calgary, in Calgary, Canada in 1979 and 1983 respectively.

From 1985-95, he was a professor in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He was also Associate Director of the Wisconsin Electric Machines and Power Electronics Consortium, the first university-industry consortium on campus that he helped to grow to include over 60 industrial sponsors.

In 1995, he started Soft Switching Technologies and as President, CEO and Chairman of the Board, he was responsible for raising venture capital funding from leading investors including GE Capital and JP Morgan Partners, for developing a line of power line disturbance monitoring and mitigation products to help factories avoid costly unscheduled downtime, and for positioning the company as a leader in this emerging market. From 2003-2004, he served as Chairman and Chief Technology Officer for the company, successfully transitioning company operations to an experienced management team.

He joined Georgia Tech in 2004 to create a strong program in the application of power electronics and related technologies to power systems and demanding defense and industrial applications. He holds 32 patents, has published approximately 200 technical papers, including over 12 prize papers, and has given many invited presentations at technical and business oriented meetings.

He is the director of Intelligent Power Infrastructure Consortium (IPIC), a university-industry-utility consortium that has been formed to provide a focal point for the academic teaching and research program in advanced power technologies at Georgia Tech. IPIC provides a mechanism to foster and accelerate the development and adoption of early-stage pre-competitive high-risk and high-impact technologies in power applications.

Ivan Urlaub, Executive Director, North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association(NCSEA).  Soon after joining NCSEA as Policy Director in February 2005, Urlaub co-led North Carolina’s 30-month effort to pass the first state Renewable Energy and Efficiency Portfolio Standard (REPS) law in the Southeastern United States.

Regularly quoted in the media, Urlaub has delivered over 160 presentations to local, state, regional and national forums on how to turn NC and Southeast energy challenges into economic opportunities through an integration of public policy, energy information and market development. Ivan serves on the Advisory Board for “Charlotte USA – The New Energy Capital,” an initiative led by the Charlotte Regional Partnership to turn the Charlotte region into a bigger player in the new energy economy through a range of initiatves - from expanding manufacturing and research to increased job training. He also serves as a commissioner on the NC Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change and as a member of the NC Climate Action Plan Advisory Group. In 2006, he served as Policy Chair on the American Solar Energy Society and as an advisor to the NC Utilities Commission’s study of the costs and benefits of a state Renewable Portfolio Standard.