Meet Akshay Sarvaiya: Engineering in the outback
Who are you?
Akshay Sarvaiya - Account Manager, Water and Process Technologies, GE Power and Water.Where are you?
Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.
What do you do?
I look after some of our biggest customers in Australia including BHP Billiton, Barrick Gold, Norton Goldfields, and Water Corporation.
What’s the weirdest place science or engineering has taken you?
An amazing Municipal Sewerage treatment plant which processes household sewage, effluent runoff to produce an environmentally-safe, fluid waste stream and a solid waste suitable for disposal or reuse. The solid waste is used as fertilizer and the treated water is used in the mining industry.
What’s the most interesting thing about your job?
The work I do has no set routine, there are always new challenges and issues I’m dealing with and that’s fabulous. I also have a chance to work with people from all over the world and share experiences with them. My work means I’m often travelling in regional Australia, to places where there’s no cellular networks or bitumen roads. I get to see how beautiful the sky is at different times of the day and in different parts of the country – that’s magic.
What do your friends and family think you do?
I tell my friend and family that I work for an innovative, global, environmentally-friendly company that is also one of the largest companies in the world. That my job is to make other companies more efficient by helping them protect their assets, save energy and reduce maintenance.
If you could share a conversation with any scientist, alive or dead, who would it be and why?
I think it would be great to meet with Thomas Newcomen and James Watt, the guys who invented the steam engine. Before the steam engine, most products were made by hand. Water wheels and draft animals provided the only 'industrial' power available, which clearly had its limits. I believe the Industrial Revolution, which is perhaps the greatest change over the shortest period of time in the history of civilisation, was carried forward by the steam engine.